


The Venn Diagram - 1934

by nikatsu



Series: Stories from #AngstCircle [3]
Category: BoA (Musician), DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, JYJ (Band), So Nyuh Shi Dae | Girls' Generation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:28:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikatsu/pseuds/nikatsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>1934</b> | Yunho didn't think he needed anything more. Until he met her.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>All lives intertwine, but there are always two sides to a story. Whichever you choose to follow is up to you.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collaborative fic written for Kimmy's birthday by [The #AngstCircle](http://theangstcircle.livejournal.com/), 2014.

The wide brim of the young woman’s hat fluttered as she carefully peeked out of the airplane door, forcing her to her face to pinch only slightly as the bright morning light hit her face. She inhaled the fresh air long and deep, savoring the slightly humid taste of it in the back of her throat. She had always believed herself to be someone who could never be able to settle in one place, but being on Korean soil always felt like a soothing balm on her skin. Being away for close to a decade intensified the feeling of content she felt as she walked down airplane’s ladder. It was the closest to peace she was convinced she would ever feel and as she looked up at the clear blue sky, Kwon BoA was convinced that maybe (this time, in the instructions of her powerful father) she could finally  _have_  a home.

"You're back."

The voice’s loud but somber tone shot a rush of nostalgia through her veins, a full-blown smile forming on her lips as quickly as it took for her to rush down the concrete walkway and into her waiting father’s arms. Kwon Je-Chul was (is) a serious man and his name alone sent a quiver of fear through many in the city and the underground, but to BoA he’d only always been ‘Papa’ and so the sound of his voice was like music to her ears.

"I am," she replies after awhile, pulling back with a wistful smile as she squeezes her arms tight around her father’s waist. She laughs a little as he cups and pats her cheek in the way he always had when she was a child and he would only visit once or twice every few months. BoA steps back only just so to do a playful curtsy, smiling brighter now as her father’s face softens with affection, “I’m home, Papa.”

"It's been so long," Je-Chul tells her, brushing a hand over her head. He’d hardly recognized her when she stepped off the plane, all grown up and lady-like in her navy-blue dress, crème hat, jacket and pumps. "I've missed you so much, chère.”

"I’ve missed you too, Papa," she responds, rubbing his back a few times before pulling away. Boa had taken notice of the men surrounding them, dressed in black suits and wearing vacant expressions and knew immediately who and why they were chosen witness to their reunion. She could only make out the tell-tale lumps on their sides to be of the dangerous sort and with a sad (almost resentful) smile, she retreated further away from the happy glow of her homecoming. BoA had forgotten it for a moment but now she was reminded of the glaring clarity that was the reality of her father’s business.

“Let’s go home, BoA.” Her father says, holding out an arm which she takes immediately despite the chill she feels when the suited men around them fell in line on either side of them. She smiles at each of them and nods in greeting as they walk by, murmuring her thanks before ducking into the dark, stretch black limousine of the Kwon family.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

Paris had been kind to Kwon Boa when she was sent to study and live with her mother at the tender age of fifteen. There had been so many places to see, so many people to meet and so many things to learn that she’d accepted her father’s instructions without hesitation, only too terribly excited at the prospect of feeding her curious mind than to wonder why she being sent away so far. After all, she mused, at fifteen she had already begun to make her mark in Seoul, doing well in her classes and forming a strong bond with one of the daughters of her father’s associates. She had been content to live in Korea despite the ferocity of her interest in ‘elsewhere’. She was happy.

And so it surprised her when her father sat her down on the eve of her 15th birthday and told her that he’d arranged for her to finish her secondary schooling in Paris.

 _“You’re going to live with Mama for a while, my dear,”_ he’d told her in a pinched manner that often came when Je-Chul spoke of her mother—his ex-wife. BoA and her mother had never been so close, and after the bitter separation of her parents well into her seven years of age, she hadn’t thought she’d see her mother again despite all of the tears and letters she’d sent her way.

But of course BoA would and eventually (surprisingly) through her father’s insistence.

_“You always said you wanted to see the stained windows of Notre Dame. Your Mama told me she intends that to be your first activity together.”_

She remembers nodding in excitement, only asking one question days later as her father stood back and watched her pack her bags.

_“Will you come with us, Papa, to Notre Dame?”_

Je-Chul’s smile then had the same somber feel to it as his tone of voice but it was a smile nonetheless and BoA loved her father all too dearly. He shook his head, patting her softly on the head, “I can’t, my dear. Papa has a lot of business to finish here.”

Looking back, BoA thinks that she should have known then what that meant.

All her life before Paris she’d known her name was special. She’d seen the reactions of her classmates faces in school—one half of them clambering to be her friend while the other half would scurry off to avoid her. She didn’t take it to heart when they did and it never really bothered her either. That is until the day of her flight to Europe, when she’d squeezed her father good-bye at the terminal and she’d caught a glimpse and felt the hard metal of a gun pressed against his side.

“How are your studies going?” Je-Chul asks over the purr of the car’s engine, snapping her out of her reverie. BoA blinks once before turning slightly and tilting her head to the side, a slightly dim expression on her face.

“They’re going well. I can’t wait for the next semester. October seems both too close and too far away somehow,” BoA answers, looking back out of the car window—watching as a few of her father’s men drove another car next to theirs. She’d been used to seeing a man or two with her father at all times outside of their home when she was fifteen, but she thought it was an exaggeration to have two cars full of armed men flanking their vehicle at either side. Pursing her lips together, BoA braved a glance at her father’s worn face and fidgeting fingers, calculating what to say about this strange development.

“I’m sure you and Sooyoung will be up to your old tricks again in no time at all,” he says as the car stops at a red light. His eyes glinted wistfully at his daughter, looking pointedly at her from his seat across. “Don’t even pretend to be so innocent otherwise. Your Uncle and I both know it was you two who swapped the red wine for raspberry juice at our table when you were both fifteen.”

BoA felt a bubble of laughter erupt from her throat. “Innocent until proven guilty, Papa. You have no proof of this alleged event! Sooyoung and I were sipping raspberry coolers the whole time you and Uncle and your associates had your stuffy old meeting.” She grinned at him sweetly. “But I’m glad you mentioned Sooyoung. I’ll call her immediately once we get home.”

“You won’t have to. I asked her to plan a homecoming party so she’ll be there the very second you step off the car.”

“Well, that’s convenient.” BoA said dryly, raising an eyebrow. “I didn’t think old-timers like you enjoyed throwing parties.”

Je-Chul shook his head, patting cheek in a way that made her feel like she was five years old. “As long as it’s a party for my one and only daughter, I’ll make an exception.”

Then a lull of silence crept in after that and BoA’s happy demeanor dampened once again. Glancing at out her window, then at her father and then at the window by his side, she noticed once again how closely her father’s men followed them on the way and the trembling way her father drummed his fingers on his knee. The mention of a party was curious enough to send her mind reeling, but all of the other peculiar things—the cars, the armed men, the drumming—were beginning to tear on her mood.

“Papa… is there something I should know?”

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

 _This wasn’t what I’d signed up for_ , Jung Yunho thought grumpily, gulping the liquid down and out of the glass of brandy he’d asked from the bartender before slamming it down on his table. He waved for another, rolling his eyes as a few women from one of the tables arranged around the ballroom studied him appreciatively from under their cloud of smoke.

He wasn’t the type to dress to the nines and loiter around in a frou-frou party. Even though he was still technically on the job… albeit on an assignment he still hadn’t decided was good for him or not.

He’d been a part of the Kwon mob family’s security detail since he was sixteen and was tried in court as an orphan and juvenile delinquent. The mob’s patriarch, Kwon Je-Chul, had stepped in before he was taken into foster care—using his power to curb the judge into letting him take the young Yunho under his wing. He’d been grateful and working diligently for the family ever since then, training constantly to ensure he was at his optimum best to protect Je-Chul and the business at all costs.

Yunho, along with his good friend and rival Kim Jaejoong, is an important member in the Kwon family ‘business’. He knew well enough to run whatever assignment Je-Chul handed over to him and often times did more than what was asked for him. He was competitive, a hard-worker and skilled thug. He was the right hand of the patriarch and that alone assured anyone who knew of the Kwon family and their business that Jung Yunho is of the best of men.

But this new job his surrogate father had given him was the oddest of them all. If not the most ridiculous he’s ever been asked to do.

Je-Chul had asked him to his study weeks ago, sitting him down as the patriarch paced. Yunho had arrived ready for anything but he hadn’t expected the orders he would receive that day:

_“Yunho, you are about the only other person I can trust with what I’m about to ask of you to do for me. You are practically the son I wish I had and so this assignment can only fall on your shoulders and no one else’s.”_

Yunho nodded solemnly, his back straight as Je-Chul rounded the table and put his hands on the wood. The head of Kwon family fixed him with a steely gaze and Yunho took a deep and steady breath to ready himself to accept whatever task was appointed to him.

_“My daughter, BoA, will be coming home in a few weeks and I want you to make sure she’s safe while she’s here.”_

His brows furrowed together as the words sunk in. Taking a step forward, Yunho narrowed his eyes and spoke lightly,  _“Sir… do you mean… as a bodyguard?”_

_“Yes, exactly that.”_

This time he shook his head, unsure of what to make of the task. He’d never met the patriach’s daughter before. He had heard she was sent to study in Europe two years before Je-Chul took him under his care and so knew nothing about who she was and what her homecoming was for. In fact, Yunho was certain he was only one left who hadn’t met Je-Chul’s daughter as he was the only one to come into the business from the outside.

_“Excuse me for asking but wouldn’t Jaejoong be better for the task? I know next to nothing about your daughter but I know he does and—”_

_“Jaejoong does know my daughter.”_ Je-Chul agreed, sinking down onto his seat and leaning back—watching Yunho carefully as he spoke,  _“But his entire life has been gearing towards something much more important. And while I’m certain he can do this job just as well you could, I need him to be with me during this time. I trust you to protect my daughter, Yunho. I expect nothing but the best from you.”_

Yunho couldn’t find it in himself to refuse after that. And while he knew this was something he did not want to do, he buckled up and accepted it without another word.

Jaejoong had assured him later that BoA was a  _good girl_  and that he wouldn’t have much trouble with her.  _Still, a body guard for a 20-year old woman? A babysitter more like._  Yunho scoffed, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. His eyes focused on the grand doors and waited for the Kwon family’s patriarch and her daughter to appear. He didn’t like this job but he would do it for Kwon Je-Chul. He owed him that much.

The grand doors swing open then, just as he’d raised his glass to down his drink and the crowd immediately falls silent. Yunho swallows the alcohol, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before looking up—and stopping his breath.

He knows it's her the second she steps into the room. His body moves at its own accord, lifting himself from where he’s perched on a table to stand ramrod straight as his eyes take in the very image of her across the floor. She is dressed in the finest of clothes and is practically immaculate as she carries the skirt of her strapless dress just so that she can walk. Her eyes scan her surroundings as her steps take her closer and closer to him; her long dark hair flowing past one shoulder and down to her tapered waist while her porcelain skin gleams under the soft ballroom lights.

“Wow,” he breathes, slack-jawed as he continues to watch her because _this is not what I expected. At all._

Everything else seems to fade into a blur of sounds in the background in that moment... and then when her gaze stops to look back at him, her eyes widening in surprise and something else that he can't (doesn't want to) decipher, his heart catches in his throat.

His feet begin to move without him knowing and all too soon, he is there somewhere in the middle of the dance floor, standing right in front of her.

“Hello,” she says softly.

“Hello.” He returns, and _that_  is  **all**  it takes.

He doesn't need her to introduce herself because her name is already a soft whisper against his lips. She smiles, and it's only then that he shakes his head and realizes the mistake his heart is making, the mistake he doesn't want his heart to make.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

The instant she sees him, BoA feels the rush of warmth tinged with something unidentifiable fill her senses. She is drawn to him in a way that she’s always only read in books—irrevocably tethered to another soul across a distance; aching to touch and drink the other’s presence in. BoA had heard tales of unexpected great loves from her friends in Paris. She had gushed and aww’d and ooh’d with the rest of them but she never truly believed it could happen to her.

Not with everything her father just told her. Not when her future was predetermined against her will.

_Papa wants me to marry Jaejoong._

Isn’t it be just her luck that she’d find herself, for the first time, truly attracted to a man her father had hired as muscle to protect her?

The opening notes to a popular English ballad started then and as couples began to dance around them, BoA took it upon herself to clear the air (and steady her heart) by offering her hand up to the man in front of her. “Care to dance?” she asks, hoping her smile wasn’t too wide or her cheeks too pink. She didn’t want him to have any inkling of what she was feeling. Not ever, or not yet anyway.

The man blinked, momentarily confused, before shaking himself out of it and nodding. He took her hand and pulled her in so gently it made her body hum. He followed the steps well, which surprised her greatly—stepping back and forward and side to side at all the right cues, twirling at all the right moments. The music set a mood between them so palpable she was almost tempted to open her mouth and taste it on her tongue.

“So you are the man my father has assigned to take care of me?” She asks instead, looking up at him. He was so tall, almost a foot and half bigger that the top of her head barely reached up to his chin. She imagined she could easily slip and disappear against him. Her eyes softened as she looked at him, the girlish part of her fluttering with delight of his handsomeness. It was a plus, definitely a plus. “I’d met all of my father’s security detail before I left so there are a lot of new faces I don’t recognize. I suppose it’s safe to assume you are one of them?”

“Yes,” he says simply, looking down at her with a strange expression. The hand on the small of her back suddenly pushes her a few inches closer to him, narrowly avoiding a swaying couple, before he speaks again, “I got into the family two years after you went to Europe.”

“Ah, and your name is?”

“I should have started with that, huh?” He said, grinning in a shy and wry way that made her smile back. The music swells and he twirls her out, “My name is Jung Yunho.”

BoA can’t help herself and laughs as he brings her back to him, grinning wide all the while as one of her eyebrows quirked upwards. The smirk he gives her is genuine for a moment before he catches himself again and retreating. Closing off before she could fully appreciate the handsomeness of his smile.

She tries again for the smirk—just for the heck of it, “And what have you heard, Jung Yunho?”

“About what?” Yunho replies, swaying slower now as the music began to close. He felt her hold on to him until the very last note, standing close even as the couples began to disperse. Taking a full step back, he assumed a more professional posture (back straight and face forward) while he struggled to school his features into a neutral expression and keep his gaze on her face.

If BoA noticed any of his quiet struggles she didn’t let on and for that he was grateful. Instead, he led her away from the dance floor and towards a table. He pulled out a chair for her to sit—which she gratefully acknowledged, sitting primly with her hands on the skirt of her dress.

“About me? I hope you didn’t hear any bad stories.” She tells him, leaning forward just a smidge closer than what he would have liked and stage-whispering, “And if you heard any from my father, don’t believe him. He exaggerates.”

“Your father didn’t tell me much except to protect you.” Yunho says to her in a bored tone and she scoffs, “I was asked to be your guard, not your friend.”

“Well, it’d be awkward if you were.” BoA replies without thinking, and he pauses to look up at her in surprise as she clamps a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I—that was—”

“It really would be awkward,” he says a beat later, waving her off. The perfect blush on her cheeks only intensifies as he continued to look at her, tempting him to place a palm upon her skin to feel its heat. But instead he pulled back and spoke lightly, remembering what Jaejoong had told her weeks ago: “I don’t know anything about except that you’re a good girl.”

The words works wonders seconds later when it sunk in and Yunho beats down the part of him that wonders why that is.

“Let me guess,” BoA starts, a soft smile lighting her lips, “Jaejoong?”

He nods, “So you do know him? I thought he was lying when he said he did. He joined the business a year before I did but that was still a year after you left.”

“We grew up together, he and I.” She tells him gently, “I’ve known him all my life. That’s kind of a nickname actually. His nickname for me. He’s always called me his good girl for as long as I can remember.”

The knowledge of this digs deep into his stomach but he wills it away, going for a short “Ah” as a response. They fall silent after that, looking back and taking each other in as they sat at opposite ends of the table. Yunho’s mind reeling at the sudden and complicated emotions warring inside of him at the very sight of her while BoA’s battled with the knowledge of what it is she feels for practically a stranger and the arrangement that was her only future.

It left them feeling breathless, having to go through so much internal calculations in hopes of tampering down the attraction them. It could never work, could never be, but damned it all they wanted to see if it could.

“I don’t need a guard.” BoA tells him a full-minute later, her eyes lighting up and holding his gaze. “Muscle, maybe, when I go out to shop and my best friend manages to convince me to buy 5 more pairs of shoes, but I’d rather have another friend while I’m here.”

The refusal closes up in his throat as she smiles shyly, blushing still and all Yunho could find himself able to do is shrug in response.

He would regret this later. He knows he will. He owes the Kwon family everything he has and treading this invisible line could only spell disaster for him.

Yunho knows but he toes the line anyway, pushing through.

“I can try.”


	2. The Declaration

Yunho spends most of his night and early next morning at Yoona’s bar, drinking down all the alcohol he can afford and watching Changmin struggle to keep his hands off Yoona and vice versa. The hangover that follows is so painful that he nearly ran a paperboy over on his way back to the mansion.

BoA already finished with her morning routine and is chatting with the maid at the dining table. She’s all done up and perfect, yet she wasn’t dressed for the day. Yunho wouldn’t know the exact amount of time he stood there at the entrance of the dining room with his mouth hung open, practically drooling. He’d never seen this much of her, she’s still in her barely there night dress with only a see through robe to cover the rest. For a moment Yunho strokes his own ego with the fleeting thought that she might have done this on purpose, knowing full well that he’d be here at this hour.

As badly as he wanted to get the hell out of this house, hop back on his car and drive away, an order is an order. Straightening, Yunho takes quick long strides into the room and chooses to sits down with two seats between them.

“Oh, good morning, mister Yunho!” The maid greets in enthusiasm, “Would you like some breakfast too?”

Throwing her a charming smile, he shakes his head. “No, but thank you for the offer.”

The old woman gives him a small nod before dismissing herself and to his delight, leaving the two of them alone.

“Good morning,” BoA says after a moment of tense silence, taking a bite of her buttered up toast, “Did you have a good night rest?”

I wish, Yunho grumbles to himself. “Oh yes, yes.”

She nods in acknowledgement but says nothing to that. Yunho reaches across the table, snatching up today’s newspaper and flips through it like all the headlines are surprises to him when in fact everything that’s been printed is what they’ve all known for weeks now – killing in the south, bank robbery, mob wars, another moll’s dead because of her in-debt lover – yes, it’s all very dull to him now. Try as he might, Yunho doesn’t know how to put a lid to his dirty thoughts, even with his eyes feasting on the picture of some dead corpse on page three. He regrets not taking up that offer on breakfast because now all he can think of is marching over there and throwing her onto his laps so she can feed him eggs and hams while he puts his paws all over her exposed skin.

“I’d like to go into town to catch a movie today.”

This crashes his train of thought. Thank god for that.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

The most Yunho recalls of the rather soppy romance movie that BoA picked, is the opening credit, after that he’s fallen asleep. BoA looks like she finds it incredibly amusing when she wakes him after everyone else has left the cinema.

“You don’t look so much like the big bad gangster when you sleep,” she grins, brushing the hair away from his eyes, “You look cute, actually.”

Absentmindedly (dreamily), Yunho thinks he can wake up to this every day.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

Though it surprises Yunho, BoA is not a girl who indulges in socializing much. Her set of friends are rather permanent; he suspects her group of close acquaintances has stayed this way for years down. Unsurprisingly, it consists mainly of young ladies within the same age group as she and is nowhere as brazen as let’s say, Sooyoung. Today’s luncheon appointment is with an equally wealthy and well-mannered lady – who, as rude as he is, has nodded and smiled at her at first glance and misplaced his memory of the encounter within the short ten minutes after.

The nature of politics has come down harsh on the town – consumption of alcoholic drinks during day time had gained a limit. This has resulted in more bootlegging – more dough but less drinking for his part and like Jaejoong always say; drinking can cure last night’s drinking.

Speaking of the devil, Yunho smirks back at his friend at the café’s door and raises his shot of espresso in a form of salute.

“No company during work hour, I take it then?” Jaejoong greets with a devious grin, shrugging off his suit jacket and pulls out the seat across from him, “Tell me, do you feel like a creep? Just sitting from the other end of a café, watching a beautiful girl and her company feasting in a little afternoon tea?”

Yunho rolls his eyes. “Not when I get paid to do so.”

“Oh, certainly!” Jaejoong mocks, snapping his finger at a waiter and order, “Yes, boy, I’d like what my friend here is having and some of that cheesecake you’ve got showing in display.”

“Right away, sir.” The rugged boy nods and runs off, his ruddy shoes skidding against the floor.

“Do you take pleasure in scaring these poor eager beaver?”

Jaejoong sucks his teeth. “I’m only practicing for the day that we become the big cheese.”

He quirks a brow. “You mean you?”

“Now why do you say that?”

“Say what?”

“That me,” He points to himself, jabbing a finger at his chest, “Kim Jaejoong, a lower class turned big time illegal mobster, will be the boss one day and not you.”

Yunho takes a sip of his coffee, says, “You want it, don’t you?”

“Don’t you?” Jaejoong retorts, waving the boy off when he puts the plate of the desert down.

He chuckles a little, bitterly or not, he is unsure. “You and I want the same thing, Jaejoong but that very same thing, comes differently for each of us.”

“Well, well,” Jaejoong leans back in his seat, clapping slowly but loud enough to get BoA to turn her attention away from her macarons, “Aren’t you a wise guy today?”

She’s staring at them, caramel orbs darting back and forth between the two of them, almost as if she, herself is unsure who it is that she should lent her attention to – who she should smile at first, who she should stand next to if she was to come over, who she would let accompany her but then BoA stops, letting her gaze hover over him for a second too long before turning away all together.

“You can say that,” Yunho’s not looking her but then again, isn’t he always looking at her in his own secret way? “I have my moments.”

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

Jaejoong, determined to be the one to drive BoA home, is unfortunately called away at the last minute to ‘straighten out a few minor details’. Practically a code for ‘time to put my pistol to use’. Yunho is shocked to see recognition pass BoA’s face at the exchange of those words. Perhaps she knows much more about the family business than her daddy tells her.

“How much do you know about your old man’s job?”

Curiosity killed the cat but Yunho’s not a cat, he’s also much smarter than one.

“Enough to know that it’s not wise to go around asking about it,” She says rather snappishly, “You, on the other hand…”

Yunho laughs, drumming his finger against the steering wheel in ease as they make a right turn. “I, on the other hand, know more than you could ever hope for, little miss.”

“Oh yes, of course, the big bad wolf that you are would know more about the mafia boss than a stupid, little dame than me.”

“Don’t call yourself a dame,” He frowns, “You’re a lady.”

“A lady?” BoA’s wide eyed all of the sudden, “Mind you, I’d rather be a moll.”

“A moll?!” Yunho yells, almost hitting the brake at the thought of that very name being associated with her, “Do you even know what that term means?”

“A gangster’s girl,” She replies without as much of a blink of an eye, “Isn’t Jaejoong a gangster?”

It always strikes him as odd; how much of erratic BoA is. Her attitude towards him could go from sweet to sour in a flash. Yunho had not dared to ask her the meaning of this treatment – if it was in her personality, her mood for the day or just him, in general. For this very reason, he is taken with her. Other girls he has met had been transparent. They had giggled at his jokes, coo at stories of his experiences, eat up his compliment and is readily available at any hour or any given day. BoA, however, is dignified - any form of flattery will cause her to flush but she will not fish for more nor will she accept it unless she knows it to be the truth. She is not afraid to correct him if he is wrong and she will most certainly argue ‘til the end of this earth if it means she could coerce him into seeing things her way.

“Jaejoong doesn’t know how to take on a woman like you,” He blurts, regretting it almost as soon as the statement left him.

BoA doesn’t look appalled, nor scandalized. Instead she looks the calmest since she’s been since he’s started the car. It occurs to him then that she’d been on edge this whole time, though he wouldn’t know why.

“No, he doesn’t,” She announces with a proud tip of the chin, “But I doubt any man really does.”

“You think I can’t?” He asks, not being able to stop himself from going down that road.

“Oh, you can,” BoA says brightly, her kitten heel brushing against his calf, “But you won’t.”

“I won’t,” Yunho doesn’t know why he’s smiling but he never could explain what it is about her that makes him feel so light, so satisfied…dare he say, happy, “I won’t”

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

“Please –“

“No “

“But –“

“No”

“Yunho –“

“No”

She sighs and throws her stockings down on the couch. “You don’t even hear me out.”

Yunho offers a comforting smile and walks over to the drink trolley. “Only because I know you’ll try to talk me into saying ‘yes’.”

“How do you know that when you haven’t even heard a word of what I have to say?!” BoA throws her arms up in the air in exasperation, “Be a darling and make me a dry martini, would you?”

“Isn’t it too early for a drink?”

“Look who’s talking, boozehound,” She retorts, letting out a very unladylike snort, “Anyway, that’s what I wanted to talk about. Let’s go for a swing; dance for the night and drink into the next sunset.”

The glasses in his hands come close to slipping out of them but he quickly slams them down on the tray. “You’re asking me to take you to a speakeasy?”

BoA blinks. “Did it sound like I was talking about someplace else?”

Yunho shakes his head, pouring himself a glass of whiskey. “I was right to say no from the very beginning.”

“Oh, come on,” She sulks, “I know what you get up to once you leave here. You can take me with you this time. It will be fun!”

“Until I end up doing something stupid,” Yunho murmurs under his own breath, “Like feeling you up, or worse, kissing you.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing” He says quickly, spinning around to face her before shoving her requested drink into her hand, “If you want to drink, you can drink here –“

“Oh, really?” She glares, voice dripping with sarcasm, “I didn’t know that I was allowed to do whatever I want in my own resident before this. Cheers to that!”

“Look,” Yunho tries, plopping down on the chair next to hers, “Your father would kill me, would you really want that to happen to me?”

She flashes a cheek smile. “Maybe”

“And here I was thinking that I’ve grown on you”

“But you have,” BoA sits up, tugging her knees under as she looks at him with eager eyes, “I’ll like you even more if you take me to out.”

“You would?”

She perks up even more at this. “I really, really would.”

Yunho scoffs, getting up on his feet and heads for the bathroom. “Too bad.”

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

If anyone asks him later on, Yunho will say the party came to him and not the other way around. Changmin spent the first twenty minutes honking from outside the gate then finds even more guts than he already has (he blames Yoona for that) to climb over, falling with a loud ‘ow’ onto the freshly cut grass. How he manages to locate the door with his condition, Yunho will never know but he gives him credit for the five minutes of persistent ringing of the doorbell. More credit for forcing him into the backseat and BoA, well she didn’t need any encouragement, she was more than happy to cooperate with Changmin’s wild antic.

“This will be fun!” Changmin parks the car with a violent screech, sending BoA to tip forward like a ragdoll. Luckily, Yunho’s quick enough to make a grab for her arm or else it’d be both their heads at the next weekly meeting.

“This is a bad idea,” Yunho whispers to the younger man, slamming the car door with the hope that it would come right off, “You’re playing with fire, Changmin.”

“And you,” Changmin sways on his feet as he jabs at Yunho’s forehead with his fore finger. He shoots the doorman a charming smile, then continues, “You, mister, you need to take that stick out of your ass.”

“I’m on duty –“

“Changmin is right,” BoA interrupts, glancing at Changmin with a real sense of fondness, “You can’t go on manhandling me! You’ve got to let me have some real fun. I promise I won’t speak of this to anyone.”

“That’s the spirit!” Changmin cheers, clasping his hand over Yunho’s back as he leads him through the door.

It’s dark inside before it gets bright. Ten seconds in the absence of light is all it took for BoA’s cold fingers to warm itself in his palm.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

Yunho likes fun – he likes big parties, small parties, after parties. He likes BoA – her quips, her wits, her flare. Expectedly two of his favorite things combined, should be more than pleasing. Except that’s not the case.

She’s not a flapper. She’s not a Jazz singer. She’s the daughter of the most feared mafia boss of all time and she’s dancing on the bar stool.

“You’re off your nuts!” Yunho yells over the drums, the trumpets and whatever the musicians get up to this day but BoA doesn’t hear him; how could she over all this commotion?

“You should sit back and enjoy this,” Sooyoung drawls in amusement, “It’s not often that you can say that you’ve seen the great BoA Kwon boogie at some downtown club.”

Pushing pass a couple of whooping boys, Yunho bites out, “Precisely why this will be the talk of the town by the end of the night.”

“You worry too much, ya know?” Sooyoung chuckles, “We’re at the cheapest place with the cheapest kind. I doubt her father will associate with this lot.”

“This lot?!” Siwon appears out of nowhere, throwing his arm around her shoulder, “You should watch what you say, girl, this cheap place is providing you free drinks seven days a week.”

“Wh –”

“Have you seen her?” Yunho butts in, shutting the both of them up at once, “If you have then you know it’s not very hard for her to get free drinks elsewhere.”

“Thank you,” Sooyoung mouths in gratitude, pushing him forward into the growing crowd.

Yunho tries not to watch. It’s wrong to do so. Because even if he’s established it hundreds of time that he does, indeed find her incredibly attractive and admirable in every way a man could possibly feel for a woman – he should never let it show. But how long can a man hold it in before his true intention shows? A long time for him, Yunho had always been told to have the most tolerant out of the whole gang but clearly, BoA’s his open wound.

“Get down!”

She casts him a carefree look over her shoulder, rubbing shoulders with Yoona and her barely there outfit. “No! How ‘bout you get up here?”

“You tell him!” Yoona encourages, blowing a kiss to Changmin who’s sitting behind the barstool, practically drooling like a love sick idiot, “It’s about time that you stop actin’ like such a wet blanket, Yunho!”

Ready to explode, Yunho knocks out the two boys in his way despite their very unhappy ‘hey’ that follows. “You’ve had your fun, BoA. We’re going home.”

“Says who?”

Pulling down the hem of her scarlet red dress, Yunho groans and begs, “Don’t do this”

She leans down to his level, her smirk so smug that it makes him want to kiss it right off her face. He will not smile, Yunho keeps telling himself like a broken record but he can feel it bubbling up again – the burst of warmth whenever she’s around. Yes, he wants to kiss her. He think he’s been wanting to do that from the moment he laid eyes on her but especially now, when she looks like nothing can beat her down.

“Give me an Abe’s Cabe”

Yunho can barely breathe. “W – what?!”

“Tip me.” She repeats herself, this time with more confidence in her demand.

Yoona breaks into jolly laughter, rocking her hips to the music. “You heard the girl, give her what she wants!”

“You can get down here and I’ll give you the dough”

“Nu-uh,” She wags her finger, then winks at Yoona, “Here.”

‘Here’ is down the deep V cut of her dress, where Yunho’s been trying not to look all night. BoA wants him to stick the bill between her breasts. Changmin’s been serving too much booze, if not then BoA had hit her head back on the car ride here.

“Go on.” The devil urges, twirling a curl around her painted finger.

With a grunt, Yunho pulls a five dollar bill from his pocket and nods at the bartender. The man seems to under his trouble and slides over a shot of vodka. You’ll be the death of me, Yunho narrows his eyes at BoA and downs the drink in one go because god knows he needs it if he’s going to do this. Taking one last big breath, Yunho straightens the little piece of paper and quick as he can, slides the bill down the front of her dress. Her skin is so soft, even softer than he had anticipated. Yunho gulps down his moan but he knows it’s clear to her that he’s enjoying this way more than he should.

It’s funny how she looks taken aback by what she had asked of him in the first place. It’s funnier how they’re smiling at each other like age old lovers the next second when she jumps into his arm and he catches her with a small groan.

They laugh at or with each other, Yunho will never know but he will always know that when she presses a kiss on his cheeks on this night; it means…everything.

There’s something about BoA that he can’t quite put his fingers on – it’s not the way she throws her chocolate curls over her shoulder when she laughs, not the way her rouge painted pout curves into the most beautiful of smiles when she looks over to him under her set of lashes, not the way she blushes the most delightful shade of red whenever he’s near. It’s not any of those things; Yunho suspects it’s her subconscious flirting that gets him so much. At least he thinks she’s not aware of it – mob boss’s only daughter sweet on her lowly bodyguard doesn’t seem like a very realistic.

Yunho’s been leaning against the side of the fancy new car for hours now, the sun has fallen and the moon has risen. The spare packet of cigarette that Jaejoong keep in the front seat is the only thing that’s keeping him from doing something stupid; like sliding his hands along her creamy thighs and eases up the hem of her ridiculously long dress – yes, definitely a bad idea. But he wanted to, so badly and maybe she wanted him to too. Maybe.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding from me”

He has to hold in a groan at the sound of her silky voice. Dropping a freshly lit cigarette on the ground, he puts it out with the heel of his polished shoes. “I wasn’t aware that we were playing a game of hide and seek.”

“It doesn’t have to be if you stop hiding,” BoA says with a coquettish grin, her heels clicking against the ground as she comes closer.

Chuckling, Yunho stuffs his hands in his pockets and avoid her curious gaze. “What’s the fun in that?”

“Do you prefer that I leave you alone then?”

Yunho wants to pretend that they’re not on the same page in this conversation; that he had no clue of the double meaning of her words. She’s playing with fire, he thinks she doesn’t know it yet but if she keeps pushing him like this then she’ll get a taste of the true nature of men.

“No,” Yunho shakes his head, flashing her a small smile, “Your father, my boss has given me order to keep an eye on you. How am I supposed to do my job if you’re far away.”

BoA sniggers, now standing so close to him that her fur coat is tickling his side. “It’s nice to know that I’m just a job to you.”

“Of course not,” He denies without a moment of hesitation, “You’re not ‘just a job’, you’re my favorite job.”

She looks up at him for a moment then bursts into a melodic laughter. He’s relieved to hear that his little joke has evoked some humor, hopefully enough for them to move pass this subject. It’s making him incredibly nervous. Funny really, he has killed countless men, had a gun held to his head, dealt with first rate criminal and a doll like her is the one that makes him tongue tied like a schoolboy on his first date.

“Is that so?” BoA teases, “Are you going to keep this job then?”

No, it will be Jaejoong’s soon enough. “If I could, I would.”

Then she’s leaning in close to him, her heel claded feet touching his own and wetting her red lips. Yunho watches as her tongue brushes over her bottom lips before disappearing into that hot little mouth again. It’s such an innocent gesture, one that shouldn’t excite him so but every move she makes is so incredibly mesmerizing to him.

“I think you should.”

He’s been so well-behaved this whole evening – at the restaurant, on the drive back but now, he feels his restraint against her weakening. “I have to follow order, you know that BoA.”

“Whose? My father’s?” She asks, her eyes burning into his, “You’re my bodyguard. Don’t you think you should be following my orders?”

“Yes,” he agrees, his throat incredibly dry, “But I don’t work for you, remember? I work for your father.”

She giggles, says in jest, “I don’t make my own dough but I think I can spare a few pennies for you.”

“My service isn’t cheap, I’ll tell you that now.”

“Oh I know,” she smiles to herself, tugging a loose curl behind her ear, “I can be very, very persuasive though.”

“I bet you do,” he says grimly, “You can have the world and everything else handed to you on a silver platter with that face of yours.”

Yunho feels her stiffens next to him and panics momentarily but BoA’s response comes quickly enough to keep him from walking away from this twisted situation. “Why, are you trying to say that I’m pretty?”

He’s unsure himself if her question is relieving or worrying to him. Doesn’t she already know the answer? Does she not ever see her own reflection every morning when she hums her favorite jazz tune and paints her eyes? She is…so beautiful that everything before and after her can never, ever compare.

“If I was a young man with piles and piles of gold,” he breathes, feeling so lost in his own wave of emotions, “If that was the case then I’d be crazy not to come knocking on your door to ask for your hand.”

BoA blinks up at him, a blush creeping onto her porcelain face. “Yeah?”

Yunho snaps out of it and coughs, clearing his throat. “Any man in his right mind would.”

It’s his duty to accompany her everywhere but the mansion is a reach away, surely BoA can return safely without his company. He excuses himself then, his legs moving on its own towards the gate and further and further away from her because without him, she is safer.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

"Wait!"

Yunho hesitates just for a moment at the sound of her voice and it it is that pause that helps her reach him in time. They are a little ways from the crowd, standing a few feet away from the exit where he would have gone before BoA could reach him.

She knows this is dangerous. The very thought of  _them,_ she understands so well means certain destruction for not just their hearts but to all those who'll bear witness. But even so, BoA finds she can't help herself. Everything she's done that evening were on her own free will. She's flirted and danced and stood too close, enjoying the sight and sound and smell of him and it still isn't enough.

BoA wants the taste of him on her skin.  _His touch on her own and vice versa._ She wants him and she knows he does too. They couldn't just pretend.

The singer on stage trails off with the band and in an instant she recognizes her last chance before this twilight ends. She turns to him and speaks, biting her lip.  _Unsure and pleading_. "Dance with me. At least once more. You can leave after, if you have to."

She's begging now and it isn't dignified of her but she begs anyway. And despite himself, BoA knows he can't help but follow.

Yunho stares down at her with his darkened gaze, prickling heat onto her skin. "Fine," he whispers, taking her hand, "But this is the last."

The next song is slower than the last and like the previous dance, their bodies sway perfectly in sync to one another. Each breath is simultaneous, each touch choreographed as they weaved through the lyrics of the song. The heat intensifying with every sigh and every look until warmth is all that they become.

Her cheek finds its place on the crook of his neck and collarbone and when she sighs, her breath sends a tingle of electricity through his skin. He grips her closer, tighter, to his own body, caging her in as though to protect her. To care for her in the only way he can…

“You feel it… don’t you?” Her voice is too soft over the music but he hears it clearly nonetheless. It is uncharacteristically demure of her to ask so shyly. Afraid even as her tone wavers at the end, “It can’t just be me.”

A moment or two passes before he finds the words to speak. Because of course he feels it too. It’s been there all along.

“No,” he agrees, his voice as soft and gentle as he could ever muster in his lifetime, “No, it’s not just you.”

“Good.” She says, looking up at him with a smile. He smiles back as her cheeks are suddenly noticeably pinker.

She reaches up to plant a light kiss on the corner of his lips and leans back to gauge his reaction, before pressing closer again to fit her mouth over his. So close but not touching until his arms pull her the rest of the way, the kiss exploding into a whirlpool of light and warmth and— Their friends were all still inside, dancing the night away, while they are tucked deep into the darkness of a seedy little night club and fused through their mouths as everything they'd been holding back since meeting becomes undone.

The pretense breaks the moment Yunho speaks, his voice dropping lower when their lips pull apart. They share one breath through their open mouths, tasting the tarty sweetness of the forbidden of what they'd just stepped into.

"This isn't going to end well. You're  _engaged_." He all but tells her and BoA agrees. His teeth nipping at her lower lip, their tongues sliding against each other as their breaths mingle into one, "We're going to hell, you know that, right?"

"Yes," she tells him, pulling at the lapels of his jacket and molding her body against his. He reacts immediately, sliding hands along her hips.

It won't end well,  _of course it won't._ And yes,  ** _yes_**  she's engaged–"But who cares?"


	3. The Reveal

Their hands are swinging back and forth, locked in between them. Yunho pulls BoA towards the entrance of the club with a sweaty grip on her fingers, pushing past the mingling, sweaty bodies in the club as he glances around furtively. He feels a tug on his hand but makes nothing of it, just tightening his hold on her own.

His breathing gets heavier and he picks up his pace, eyes pinched at the corner as sweat runs down his face, and it isn’t until BoA stops moving, yanking him back with her, that he finally slows down. “Wait – Yunho, wait, wait one second.”

“Yeah?” He turns around to look at her, taking in the flush in her cheeks and the glow in her eyes.

“Shouldn’t we tell one of them that we’re leaving? Changmin, Siwon? Sooyoung, at the least?” She doesn’t mention Yoona, who is probably off getting piss drunk at the bar with Changmin by her side failing at chaperoning her, and he smiles, slightly, shaking his head.

“They’ll figure it out, it’s – it’s okay. Come on,” and his grip on her hand tightens all the more, but she doesn’t seem to mind, “let’s get going.”

They stumble to the bus stop and wait in the chilly summer night, BoA huddled under Yunho’s arm, and it isn’t until the bus arrives and Yunho shakily makes his way up the steps that the reality of this has hit him all.

He kissed the boss’s daughter. The boss’s daughter.  _Jaejoong’s fiancée._

His arm drops from her shoulder and he maneuvers his way to the back, sliding into one of the corner seats and only half paying attention when BoA slips into the seat next to his. “Are you feeling well?” she whispers, and she’s still shaking, but he just turns his head away, lips twitching with all of the unspoken rejections he should’ve said earlier, much much earlier. “Yunho?”

The bus lurches to a stop again and a drunk man stumbles on, laughing maniacally and tripping over his own feet as he tries to find enough balance to take a seat. Yunho stiffens and stands up, pushing BoA off to the corner and sitting on her open side so no one can sit next to her.

“Yunho?” she says again, and it’s much quieter this time.

“I’m fine. We need to get you home.”

“I – okay.” She says nothing after that, but Yunho doesn’t pull away when her hand reaches for his, fingers slipping through the empty spaces, cool against his overheated skin.

In his dreams, BoA trembles in his arms. He doesn’t try to shake the thought out of his head.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

“Yunho. Yunho, wake up.” BoA shakes at his arm, brushing his hair out of his eyes, and it isn’t until she leans down to whisper in his ear that his eyes finally blink open, soft and innocent and so sad. “Yunho,” she whispers again, “we’ve arrived.”

“Arrived? Where?”

Yunho’s arm stretches out above him and she swallows. “Your apartment. Come on.” She grabs his hand and stands up, motioning to the bus driver who nods sleepily at them, and then drags him off the bus with her. “It’s late, let’s hurry home.”

He follows after stumbling, keeping her close, and they arrive at his apartment in one piece. They walk in slow steps to his apartment complex, one foot in front of the other, hands tight in each other’s, and it isn’t until BoA heaves a loud sigh that Yunho finally says something. “Why didn’t we get off at the stop for your house?”

“No particular reason.”

“BoA…”

She turns to him, smiling despite his confused expression, and holds a finger to his lips. “Ssh. Don’t fret over it. Just… walk with me. Let’s walk home.”

“Home.” The word tastes unfamiliar on Yunho’s tongue and he doesn’t say anything when she pulls her finger away, laughing. “Okay. Home it is.” He drops her hand only to toss his arm over her shoulder, and when he lets the thoughts float away, lets the mob and Jaejoong and Je-chul and all of this, lets it all disappear, it doesn’t feel as wrong. Home. It’s fitting.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

Maybe it’s her words, maybe it’s the way she says it, maybe it’s just because it’s her, but Yunho finds himself on top of her in the next hour, letting BoA pepper kisses all over his face. “BoA–" and it’s like that’s the only way he knows how to say her name. When he’s warning her, when he’s reprimanding her. Not like he loves her.

“I know,” she mumbles, and she kisses him anyways, dragging her hands into the collar of his shirt to pull him closer. “I know, just–"

“We can’t,” but he makes no move to stop her, lips against hers, insistent.

“Tonight.” BoA pulls back breathing heavily, and her lips are a deep red, glossed with spit. Yunho runs a thumb across her bottom lip and sighs. “Just tonight, I promise. You can't tell me you don’t want this either.”

Yunho laughs, brokenly, head dropping as he presses a soft kiss across her collarbone. “How could you even ask me that? Of course I want this.”

BoA sighs and pulls his head up to kiss him before pushing his head back down. “Then put your mouth to good use, Jung Yunho."

He exhales softly as his lips find their way down her body, pressing kisses against her neck, down her chest and to her stomach, the ridges of her ribs and the skin of her hipbone, down until he’s breathing against the thin fabric between her thighs. Yunho glances up at her once, then, sees the torn expression in her eyes, how much she wants and how she knows the consequences just as well as he does.

They go slowly, Yunho’s hands on either side of her as he pushes into her later, and her breath is lost in the spaces between his shoulder and his jaw, face pressed into his neck to muffle her moans. Yunho kisses her forehead, her nose, her eyes, the high points of her cheeks and down her jawline, the tip of her chin and the base of her neck, and finally, when he feels himself reaching the edge, presses against a kiss her lips and swallows down her cries.

BoA follows soon after and Yunho collapses down on the opposite end of the bed, but BoA pulls him back towards her. She drapes his arm over her waist and pushes in closer until she’s against his chest, so close that her lips brush over his skin with every slight movement.

She shivers in his arms, pressing her cheek against his chest. “Don’t leave me.”

Yunho sighs and buries his face into her hair, inhaling deeply. He doesn’t know how she could think he could ever leave her.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

BoA wakes up to a heavy weight on her chest and a ringing sound echoing through the apartment. She sits up slowly in the bed, blinking slowly, and glances around the room in a futile search. She’s all alone.

The ringing reaches her ears when she finally realizes where it’s coming from. BoA grabs at the telephone on the bedside table on instinct and picks up the receiver, whispering a breathless, “Hello?”

“Hello? Yunho?”

“Ah, no, it’s–”

“BoA?"

The tone is all too familiar, and she swallows, glancing at the bathroom where she hears incessant shuffling. It’s her father. “Yes,  _Papa_ , it’s me. How are you?”

“What are you doing at Yunho’s apartment?”

“I–” Her stomach churns and her eyes dart around the room. The shower starts running in the bathroom, and she frowns. “We were running errands, and he had… forgotten something. He asked me to pick up the telephone."

“Ah. I see.” His voice is calm, composed. There is a pause, shuffling on the other end of the line, before he speaks again. “How is Yunho treating you?”

“Fine.” Perfect. She thinks back to the night before, to the hands on her hips and the kisses pressed against her lips, to soft fingers brushing her hair out of her eyes as he pushed into her. Her face flushes and she brings a hand up to her face, feels heat seeping into her skin. “He’s fine, father. Just fine.”

“And you’re liking him as your bodyguard?”

“Yes."

“Well then. That’s nice to hear. And Jaejoong?”

Her mind blanks, and BoA treads over his loud personality and stiff demeanor. “What about him?”

“What do you think of him?” He says it without as much of a pause, as if the answer is right there in front of her. BoA’s not so sure she has the right response.

“He’s… he’s fine, too.”

Her father doesn’t say anything for a while, complete silence on his end, and it isn’t until she is about to speak up again that he finally chuckles. “Wonderful.”

“Did – did you need something, father?”

“Well, I just wanted to inform Yunho that if your errands aren’t too important, I would like you to come have lunch with me for today. You’ve been out so much these past weeks. I missed you.”

BoA opens her mouth to respond, smiling, but then the door to the bathroom opens and Yunho steps into the bedroom, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. He scowls when he sees her, and her eyes widen. She averts her gaze when he stares at her blankly, fixing her focus at an empty spot on the wall. “Of course, father. I will tell him."

“Wonderful.” She hers her father murmur something unintelligible, and then, “And bring Yunho with you as well.”

“I–” BoA turns back to Yunho, who has retreated once again into the bathroom, door left wide open. “Of course, father.”

“Excellent. I shall see you then.”

The telephone clicks off and she lets the receiver drop from her hand, clattering against the table loudly. BoA stands up from the bed and grabs at a bathrobe from the floor, making quick move to put it on, before shuffling into the bathroom quietly. “Yunho?”

“I’m changing.” His voice comes out muffled, and then he comes out of the large walk-in closet, dressed more appropriately in a collared shirt and dress pants. His whole body stature is stiff, and his voice is stiff when he speaks. “What?”

“Your – I mean, my father called. He invites us over for lunch.”

His eyebrow raises. “Us?”

“Yes. The both of us.”

Yunho glances at his watch, eyebrows furrowed, and then looks up at her without actually looking at her. “It’s half past twelve. Go get dressed, and we can leave right away.”

“I only have the outfit from yesterday, and I don’t think that would be appropriate for a lunch invitation.”

Yunho tenses, relaxes, and pushes past her all in one move to go to the bedroom. “You have a change of clothes in the room. I kept it with me just in case.” He doesn’t elaborate, just tosses a plastic bag into the bathroom before slamming the door on his way back out.

BoA sighs, grabs the wrinkled bag, and doesn’t hope for the better.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

“Come in, come in. Master’s waiting at the table.” Yunho lets BoA go first before following after her as she leads to the way to the table. They arrive in the dining room and Je-chul is sitting at the head of the table, laughing about something with Jaejoong, when he finally notices the two guests.

“Ah, my daughter, Yunho! You’ve arrived. Come, come, sit down.” He makes no motion to stand up, but gestures at the chairs, BoA takes a seat next to Je-chul, and Yunho takes his next to Jaejoong.

BoA stiffens, but says nothing, smiling at her father. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a meal together. What did you prepare for us today?”

Je-chul laughs, putting a hand over hers, but the atmosphere is too tense for anyone to laugh along with him. “Of course, nothing special in comparison to your lovely European cuisines, but hopefully something you’ll enjoy anyways.”

BoA smiles, nods. She glances at Jaejoong, who has his elbows propped up on the dining table casually, as if this is a position he is in all too often. Yunho stays motionless beside him, lips set in a straight line. “Of course, of course.”

The lunch comes out in separate courses, and the whole time her father keeps up simple conversation with her alone, as if they are the only two at the table. Across from her, Jaejoong and Yunho are immersed in their own conversation, Jaejoong animated with his whispered words and Yunho distant in his curt nods and mostly silent responses.

“Me and boss are going to Daegu today,” Jaejoong whispers to Yunho, eyes bright and one side of his mouth turned up in a smirk.

Yunho looks over at Je-chul, who is reliving a story from what seems like BoA’s childhood, and BoA laughing along. “Good for you.”

“I feel kind of sorry that you’re stuck babysitting, while I get to hang out with boss all on my own.”

Yunho snorts. “You don’t sound that sorry.”

Jaejoong hits Yunho in the shoulder, laughing, and it almost feels normal, stress-free, the way Jaejoong falls back into their routine even when they haven’t seen each other as friends in the past couple of weeks. “Don’t be bitter, Yunho. We all know your boss’ favorite.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” When he looks up again, BoA is staring at him, and Yunho swallows, looking towards Jaejoong. “He’s got a kiss ass on his tail all the time now, I’m sure favorites have changed.”

Jaejoong laughs and punches Yunho again, and he almost feels sorry to have to leave when their lunch ends.

“It was nice catching up with you,  _Papa_ ,” BoA says, bowing her head at him slightly. “I know Yunho–” she glances over at him, turned towards Jaejoong with his hands in his pockets, “has to finish his errands, so we should head out again.”

“Of course,  _ma chere_.” Je-chul ruffles her hair, smiling, and then nods once at Yunho. “Keep up the good work, Yunho. Your streak is looking good as always.”

“Thank you, sir.” Yunho turns to BoA, who is playing with her fingers and looking at the grown, and smiles softly. "She’s safe with me.”

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

The ride back to his apartment is completely silent. It isn’t until they are about to pull into the complex parking that BoA stops him, opening her mouth. “Can we please get ice cream?”

“BoA…”

“Please?” She turns to him, placing hand on his arm after having avoided contact the whole day, and widens her eyes. “Please?” she repeats. “This is the last thing I’ll ask of you, I promise.”

Yunho sighs, silent, but she knows she’s won when he pulls out of the lot and drives towards the ice cream place nearby, a small shop tucked into the very corner of a line of stores.

They enter quietly, order quietly, and take a seat outside in the summer heat quietly, a small cup of ice cream in hand for BoA and coffee for Yunho.

She pushes her ice cream to the middle of the table and leans forward, elbows on the table and chin resting on her hands. “We should talk.”

“Are you sure you want to do this now?” Yunho leans back against his chair and she frowns.

“If we don’t do this now, we’ll never do it. Tell me what I did to you.”

Yunho sighs. “You didn’t… you didn’t do anything to me, BoA.”

“Then why are you avoiding–”

“Because this is wrong! You and I both know that very well, and we both know who he would like you marry. I’m your bodyguard, BoA, not your play toy for you to release all your sexual desires on before you are tied down.”

“Who said I wanted you as my play toy?”

“BoA–”

“Don’t act as if this is all me! I know you like me just as much as I like you, so stop playing this off as if I’m the only one that is at fault.”

Yunho sighs, and it frustrates her how much he doesn’t let out his emotions, how even as something as trivial as an exhale of air seems patronizing when he does it. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t all your fault, it’s just – our lives are at the hand of this. I don’t… I don’t want you to get hurt.”

BoA swallows and reaches towards his end of the table, and when he picks his hand up to twine their fingers together she doesn’t know how she’s ever supposed to stop loving him, him and his condescending manner and his haughty words and his rational thinking. Him and his fears, his soft breaths, his hair in the morning and his droopy eyes at night. She doesn’t know how she’s ever supposed to stop loving him. “I love you,” she whispers, and he smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“I love you too.”

“Then don’t leave me.”

There it is again, the break in her voice, and Yunho looks up to meet her eyes for the first time that day. Her lips are curled into a soft frown, eyes glazed over, and he squeezes her hand. “I would never leave you.”

She stands up out of her chair then, leaning forward towards him, and it isn’t until she purses her lips that he realizes what she plans on doing. Yunho scrambles up out of her chair, grabbing the cup of ice cream and shoving it towards BoA. “Not here,” he breathes, and she frowns again but takes the ice cream from him anyways. “When we get back. I promise.”

“Okay. You promised.”

Yunho senses she’s not just talking about the kiss, but he nods anyways, leading her towards the car. On the drive back to his apartment he holds her hand and it seems like for the first time since BoA arrived, his heart is finally at rest.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

BoA is sitting on the couch, fiddling with the radio as Yunho bustles around in the kitchen, when she finally notices something off about the single pair of shoes sitting at the front of the apartment and the set of utensils that always come in pairs.

“Yunho, where is Jaejoong?”

There is a pause from all the cluttering in the kitchen, and then a soft voice. “Daegu.”

“Why?”

“Je-chul hyung had some business over there, so he took Jaejoong with him.” BoA doesn’t know whether the slight hitch in his voice is because of resentment, or because of something else, but she stands up anyways, making her way over to the kitchen. Yunho is looking through the refrigerator, and when he stands up she can make out the droop of his lips and the sadness in his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” He turns to look at her. “Why?”

“Is it not my fault? You are forced to look after me while Jaejoong gets to go out and have a father-son bonding session with  _your_  girlfriend’s father.”

“You mean, Jaejoong— _your fiancé_?” But Yunho smiles despite the cold truth of that fact, small and sincere, and he shakes his head, and even with the roughness of his expression he looks innocent, then. “It’s not your fault. I would have chosen watching over you any day, BoA.”

“Really?”

He nods. “Really.”

BoA smiles back at him, pushing off the counter and reaching for him, and it’s when her lips are just inches away from his own that he pulls away. Frowning, she reaches for him again, but he steps back once more. “You promised!” she whines, and she would’ve stamped her foot as well if Yunho had not reached for her hand, pulling her towards him.

“First, we need to lay down some ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” She raises an eyebrow, shrugging out of his grip. “What sort of relationship has ground rules?”

“Ours.” He reaches for her hand again and this time, she doesn’t pull away, following him out to the kitchen towards his bedroom. He seats them both on the bed and looks down at their joined fingers. “First, no touching other than in my apartment.”

“How about the car?”

“Holding hands only, and that’s if  _and only if_  no one else is there.”

BoA groans, falling forward and wincing when her head hits his shoulder. He makes no move to push her off and continues on with his list. “Two, no touching, other than in my apartment.”

“You already mentioned that.”

She feels him press a kiss against her head and smiles. “It needs to be repeated if you’re ever going to follow the rule.”

“Can I add to the list then?”

“And what would that be?”

BoA wraps her arms around his waist tightly, nuzzling her face into his neck, and sighs. “I know I’ve already made you promise, but just to be on the safe side–“

“Don’t leave you.” He finishes for her, eyebrow quirking up along with his smile.

She smiles back, and kisses his neck. “Don’t ever leave me.”

Yunho sighs, resting his head on top of hers, and nods. It’s all he can give her, then.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

It’s two weeks into their supposed romance when he finally breaks that promise.

“Rise and shine, beautiful!”

There is rapping on the door and BoA glances over at front of her room before walking towards the barrier, yanking the door open forcefully to glare at the intruder. Jaejoong. “What?”

“I’m your new bodyguard!”

“What?” BoA pushes past Jaejoong to look behind him, attempting to find Yunho behind him. “No, you aren’t. Where is Yunho?”

“Downtown. Now come on, let’s go have some fun!” He grabs at her arm and she glares at him, pulling her arm out of his grip and looking over the balcony railing to see if maybe he has standing at the foot of the stairs. “He isn’t down there, BoA. Come celebrate with me instead!”

“Celebrate what?”

Jaejoong shrugs. His whole demeanor is so conflictingly childish, the loud voice and the rash movements. “Our engagement! We are fiancees, after all.” He winks at her, linking his arm with hers again, and moves to drag her down the stairs with him.

When they reach the kitchen, Jaejoong pulling open the refrigerator to grab a bottle of wine, that BoA finally stops him. “Really, Jaejoong, where is Yunho? Are you not supposed to be out with my father?”

Jaejoong is still in the midst of opening up the wine bottle, and then he grabs two flukes from the cabinets up above. “Downtown, I said. He’ll be there for a week.”

“Why?”

He glances over at her, eyebrows raised, and leans forward on his elbows. “Why are you so concerned, anyways? I’m here, am I not enough?” He pours the wine into the glasses, filling them halfway up before sliding one towards her, and it takes all of her concentration so early in the morning to not let it go crashing to the floor.

“Alcohol? So early in the morning?”

He raises his glass to her, smiling. “There’s always time to celebrate.” Jaejoong doesn’t wait for her to raise her glass as well before drinking it down in one shot, and she supposes that’s how it was always meant to be.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

Yunho arrives at her house the next morning, a smile playing on his lips as he thinks of finally seeing her after a week away. Je-chul had sent him off on a impromptu round around the Seoul downtown area with Yoochun, while Jaejoong had stayed the week with BoA as his replacement.

He steps inside the large living area and contemplates calling her name when Jaejoong appears at the top of the stairs, impeccably dressed in his collared shirt and dress pants.

“Yunho? What are you doing here?”

Yunho straightens up, glancing towards the balcony where he hears humming. “I came for BoA.”

Jaejoong steps down until he is eye to eye with Yunho, and he raises an eyebrow. “What for?”

“She–”

“Yunho!” There’s a screaming from upstairs and they both look up to see BoA in the same place Jaejoong had been only minutes for, a bathrobe tied tightly around her waist, and she has the same wide grin she had on her face when he had first seen her. She rushes down the stairs and shoves herself in between the two men, smiling up at Yunho. “You’ve arrived, finally!”

He resists smiling back at her and nods his head instead, hands folded behind his back. “I’m sure you and Jaejoong had fun together.”

BoA glances up at Jaejoong, who rolls his eyes, and she shoves at him playfully. “No, it was dreadful. He’s so awfully boring, I just wanted to kill myself. He never let me go out at all!”

“Lies!” Jaejoong nudges her back with his hip, and his eyes are twinkling with something that Yunho doesn’t recognize. He feels his heart drop to the pit of his stomach and says nothing, keeps his hands folded tightly and his mouth shut. “I offered you out for lunch and dinner so many times.”

“I did not come to Seoul to eat, I came here to explore!”

BoA grabs Yunho’s arm and she looks up at him with affection spilling from her eyes, and it takes all of his effort to peel her hand off of his jacket. “Why don’t you go get changed, I have some errands to run and then we may go out.”

“Perfect!” She smiles at him and then tosses one more playful glare at Jaejoong before darting back up the stairs.

When Yunho tears his gaze away from her, Jaejoong is eyeing him suspiciously, lips set in thin line. “Where are you taking her?”

He feels a rush of possession, then, and his gaze hardens, hands tightening into fists behind his back. “Wherever she would like to go.”

Jaejoong opens his mouth to retort, but before he can say anything, there is a ringing sound from the kitchen area. Jaejoong throws him one last look before rushing to the kitchen, and while he waits for BoA to come downstairs, he hears, “Ah, yes, me and BoA will be attending the event together. Do not worry, Je-chul hyung, the wedding will go just as you planned.”

BoA comes down the stairs, then, her skirt hiked up higher than normal, and her sleeves cut out from her shirt. Yunho tosses his jacket over her shoulders and says nothing.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

They spend the entire day sitting in the park, doing nothing and everything. Yunho buys her food and BoA sits on a blanket with Yunho’s jacket covering her legs, tells stories on end of nothing that matters because he just wants to hear her voice.

It isn’t until much later that night, when she is laying down under the stars and she can feel Yunho’s gaze on her, and she doesn’t blush, just blinks her eyes lazily. “Take me back home.”

“Why? You don’t like being with me?”

She looks over at him and raises her eyebrows, and doesn’t make a move to pull her blouse back down when it flutters in the wind. “Is Jung Yunho getting clingy? Over me?”

“No, I just – stop laughing!” She feels Yunho frowning at her and BoA giggles even louder, attempting to sit up on the blanket and almost falling back over when a sudden wave of drowsiness hits her. “Come on, you’re tired. I guess I’ll have to take you back.”

“Stay with me,” she mumbles, falling on to his arm.

He tenses and then relaxes again, but BoA knows him well enough after all of this to have noticed. “I can’t.”

“You promised.”

BoA looks over at him, notices the pain in his eyes, and thinks about reminding him of the days ticking down and the way their now isn’t a forever. “You promised,” she repeats, and even in her sleepless form she knows that whatever happens neither of them can win now.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

“I really shouldn’t stay, BoA,” he whispers, but BoA tugs at his arm anyways, dragging him into her bedroom and forcing him down on to the bed.

“It’s so late,” she says, and turns to the dresser, throwing it open and pulling out a night gown. “I can just tell my father you were extremely tired after having dragged me around all day, and I felt bad so I let you stay the night.”

“You’re engaged, BoA, you can’t make up silly excuses like that and expect to get away with it!”

BoA turns towards him, eyes hardened, and she scowls, throwing a t-shirt at him. “Do not mention my engagement, Yunho. I’ve asked you that before, please don’t make me ask you again.”

“I – okay. I’m sorry.”

Her face softens just as quickly as she had been angered, and she walks forward, pressing a chaste kiss on his lips and smiling when he attempts to chase after her lips when she has already pulled away. “Just… just let me be happy with you, okay? With no mentions of anyone else. Only the two of us. Okay?”

Yunho sighs. “Okay.”

BoA smiles again and then heads into the bathroom, turning to him once more. “You may change your shirt in here while I wash up for bed. You can pick which side of the bed you want to sleep on.”

“BoA, I can’t sleep in your room–”

“The door will be locked, and my father does not spend the nights in the house anyways. He has mistresses homes’ he prefers. He will not be here until breakfast, so until then, just relax. Okay?” Her eyes are shaking, a silent please, and it’s like she had planned this whole thing down to every little detail. Yunho sighs again, but concedes anyways.

“Okay.”

Then the bathroom door is slamming in his face, and that is the last he sees of her for the night.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

When he wakes up the next morning, the t-shirt BoA had given him is still clutched tightly in his hands, his dress shirt wrinkled on his body but otherwise okay.

He hears mumbling near the door and Yunho stands up, walking towards the entrance of her room only to hear BoA and her father conversing.

“Yunho-sshi stayed the night, father, he had been dragging me around all day yesterday and I felt bad, having him drive all the way to the other side of town to his apartment after disposing of me, that I offered him to stay the night. Was that alright of me to do?”

Je-chul laughs, and Yunho sighs when he hears BoA giggle along with him. “Of course, my dear. Just don’t make him suffer through late nights like that again.”

“Oh, of course not.”

There is more mumbling, and then the door is being shoved open unceremoniously, almost knocking Yunho off of his feet as BoA bursts into the room. “BoA!”

“I am sure you heard that whole encounter, so you should already know that my father is not angry with either of us. He would also like for you to stay for breakfast, so be downstairs quickly.”

She smiles at him, and then reaches up to kiss the corner of his lips, before shoving him once more into the girly stench of her bathroom.

By the time he arrives downstairs, BoA and Je-chul are both seated at the dining table, as well as Jaejoong, who looks as if he has just arrived. He doesn’t even pay Yunho a glance, too busy immersed in conversation with Je-chul as if this is a daily occurrence, breakfast with the son-in-law. Both of them are talking animatedly, and on the opposite side of the table, BoA sits there completely opposite of her behavior this morning, with her head bent to the floor, stirring her soup aimlessly.

Yunho takes a seat next to Jaejoong and bows slightly at Je-chul, whose smile fades a little. “Yunho, we were just talking about the marriage arrangements going on.”

“Marriage… arrangements?”

Yunho glances over at BoA, who still has not lifted her head up, but Je-chul is still talking. “Between BoA and Jaejoong, remember? They are engaged, after all.”

Jaejoong turns toward him, eyebrow raised, and for a second Yunho sees the Jaejoong he had grown up with, the reckless teenager who was always dying his hair and breaking things, the brother he had always dreamed of. It disappears instantly, when Jaejoong nudges him again, but it makes his heart twinge anyways, his eccentric red hair turned black and the soft lines of his smile turned bitter. “Yes, of course. I had forgotten, my apologies.”

“No need to be sorry.” Je-chul waves him off with chopsticks in hand, smile at full power once again. The wrinkles of his face are barely prominent and he looks like the cruelly successful millionaires in the newspapers. “It’s been such a long time overseas for BoA, it’s time she had settled down. Right, my dear?”

They all turn to look at BoA, still stirring her soup, and there is a lost look in her eyes that Yunho doesn’t recognize. He is about to say something when Je-chul snaps at her, lips curling downwards in a scowl. “BoA! Stop playing with your food and answer me!”

She looks up immediately, eyes widening, and she glances at Yunho for all of two seconds before turning to her father. “My apologies, Papa! What was that you said?”

“It has been a long time overseas for you, hasn’t it, dear?”

BoA lets her gaze fall from her father back on to her plate, to the cleanly decorated fish in front of her and the soup that has long gone cold. “It has,” she whispers. “It has been a long time.”

Je-chul, seemingly satisfied with the answer, turns back to Jaejoong, but all Yunho sees is the broken girl at the end of the table, a figure equally as broken as his heart.

 

**# # # #**

 

 **(** the device flickers once, twice, and boa watches as the one pink line becomes two, blinking slowly in front of her. harsh. daunting. pregnant.

boa drops on to the toilet seat, a fist over her mouth, the other hand clutching the test tightly in her hand. yunho is waiting outside the convenience, ready to drop her back home, to jaejoong, her fiancee. it had been on a whim, a gut feeling that maybe – maybe she should do something, just to see.

but it had to be.

she stares at the two pink lines once more before trashing the little device. washing her face in the sink, boa pulls up to stare at herself in the mirror, and her gaze drops to her stomach.

she rubs her eyes once, for fear of red and tears, and then pushes the bathroom door open, nodding her head the cashier before rushing out through the entrance. yunho is sitting in the driver’s seat, gaze straight ahead, and she makes her way over to the passenger’s side, throwing herself inside.

“boa?” yunho is staring at her, eyes wandering to her empty hands clutched in tight fists at her side. “are you okay? did you find what you needed?”

“they – they didn’t have it.” she forces a smile, taking in his concerned expression, worry and doubt clouding in his eyes. as if every little detail matters.

he nods, then, tearing his gaze away from her to look at the front, starting the engine of his car again. “alright. let’s get you back home.” yunho is about to pull out of the parking lot when boa finds herself leaning over the control shift to his side, closer and closer until her lips are brushing his ear.

“yunho?” she whispers, and she can see his hands tighten around the steering wheel. he hums noncommittally, still staring ahead. boa takes a deep breath, inhaling quietly, and then breathes: “take me on an adventure.”

“where do you want to go?” yunho is whispering, too, soft words that she wouldn’t have heard otherwise.

boa pauses, and then, sitting back in her seat, gazes out the window, the empty streets and a lone stranger walking down the street. “away. far away.”

yunho is silent, and then the car is starting again. a sigh, and he is pulling out of the parking lot and in the direction of her house. boa lets her eyes shut, and when she opens them again the car is stopped in front of her house and yunho is at the door, jaejoong on the other hand. they both glance towards the car and boa’s hand makes its way over her stomach, cold against the warmth of her skin.

she wonders how long this was supposed to last. **)**

 

**# # # #**

 

Weeks past and the arrangements only quicken, Je-chul intent on the grandest wedding for his daughter and the mob leader, and Yunho only appears in short glimpses, occasionally taking her out when her father requests it.

She is locked up in her bedroom most hours of the day, and by the third week she decides she can’t take the pain anymore.

“I would like to go out,” she demands, stepping down the stairs where Je-chul is lounging, a glass of wine in his hand.

“Ah, my daughter! Where you would like to go, dearest?”

She purses her lips and stares at the door, foot tapping against the tiled floor, when the door opens and Yunho is standing at the entrance with a bag in hand. Her mouth falls open and she stares at him – it feels like it’s been months since she’s gotten to look at him, fall in love all over again like that very first time.

Yunho breaks their eye contact and turns toward Je-chul, stepping inside. “I brought what you requested,” he says, holding the bag out.

Je-chul stands up suddenly, the wine in his glass sloshing back and forth, and rushes to take the bag from Yunho’s hand. He peers inside and smiles, before turning back to look at BoA. “Your bodyguard is here, you are free to go where you would like.” Then, he is gone, retreating into his dirty business in their basement.

“Yunho,” she breathes, and he meets her eyes for all of one second before folding his hands in front of him.

“Where would you like to go?”

She steps forward, glancing once behind her before reaching towards the lapels of his jacket, clutching the fabric tightly in between her fingers. “Can we go to your apartment?” she whispers.

“BoA…”

“I haven’t seen you in ages, Yunho, please?” She looks up at him, pushing herself closer. “I missed you.”

He sighs, pulling her hand off of his jacket, and then he grabs it with his own tightly, leading her out the door and towards his car. Once they are seated inside, Yunho starts the car and then they are speeding down the street. He still hasn’t answered her question. “Yunho?”

“Wait.”

Only when they are a safe distance from her house does he finally stop, pulling into a deserted parking lot, hidden amongst trees and a looming building in front of them. Yunho pulls the key out of the ignition and drops it into the cup holder, letting his head fall back against the head rest as he closes his eyes. “Yunho?”

When he doesn’t say anything, BoA sighs, pulling herself out of her seat and maneuvering herself over on to his. He doesn’t notice what she is doing until BoA drops herself on to his lap, hands placed on either side of his head. His eyes pop open and he stares at her, swallowing when their noses brush against each other. “What are you doing?”

“I want to spend time with you, but you refuse to speak, so I’ll just have to make it up some other way.”

“And what way is th–”

She cuts him off, then, pressing her lips against his, soft and quick before pulling back. Her heart is racing like maybe she shouldn’t have done that, and Yunho is looking at her with a darkness in her eyes that she hasn’t ever seen before. Her hands tighten on his sleeves and she exhales quietly.

“That way,” she whispers.

Yunho’s hands find their way to her hips, holding her steady in his lap, and then it is his turn, leaning up to capture her lips as he holds her tightly in his grip. BoA releases his sleeves and tangles her hands into his hair, pushing him back against the seat as she moves closer, and it is no longer short and sweet. He licks at her bottom lip and she parts her mouth open, tongue against tongue, and then Yunho's lips are traveling further down, chaste kisses against her jawline before moving to her neck.

She sighs quietly, melting into his hold, arms now looped around his neck. His name rolls off of her tongue in soft moans, whimpering as his fingers toy with the edge of her blouse, his hot fingers pressed against her cool skin. “I want – you,” she hiccups, rolling her hips, and his hands travel to the front of her pants, right at the button–

There is a loud honking in the distance and they break apart, suddenly. BoA looks down at Yunho to see his chest rising and falling rapidly, tan skin reddening, and she can feel her own heart beating quickly, skin flushed in a warm heat.

Yunho’s eyes close again, head falling back when he realizes what he’s done, and BoA sighs. It’s like a never-ending regret, their relationship.

Fingers toying at the end of his hair, she leans forward until their foreheads are pressed together, sweaty and sticky and too warm to be comfortable. Her whisper is loud enough for the both of them.

_I wish we weren’t like this._

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

They end up at his apartment anyways, BoA shoving through the door first and making her way into his bedroom. “Jaejoong?” she calls, and Yunho trudges in after her, coat in hand.

“He isn’t here,” Yunho calls back. When he goes into his bedroom he finds her huddled under the covers, face buried in his pillow. “What are you doing?”

“Come sleep with me,” she murmurs. “I miss you.”

“You always miss me,” but Yunho relents anyways, crawling under the comforter behind her. His arms wrap around her waist and she turns around so she can nuzzle her head into his chest, inhaling deeply. “BoA?”

She hums.

Yunho sighs, takes a deep breath, and then:

“I – I love you.”

Her head snaps up and BoA looks at him with a unreadable expression, a pout on her lips and a glittering in her eyes. “What was that?”

“I love you.”

She stares at him for a couple of seconds, and then suddenly BoA is on top of him once again, leaning down to brush his bangs out of his eyes and press a loving kiss to his lips. “Do you really?” she whispers when they break apart, and Yunho smiles, smoothing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Of course.”

BoA smiles, then, fingering with the buttons of his shirt, and she traces patterns on to the thin fabric, thinking to herself. “I love you too,” finally. She looks down into his eyes, and it’s like there is not a worry in the world when she looks at him like that, like he is all she needs to be happy and whole. “We were meant to love each other.”

Yunho tenses. “BoA, you know–”

“Ssh.” She presses a finger to his lips and covers his eyes with her other hand, huffing. “Don’t speak to be in that patronizing tone of yours. I’m an adult, Jung Yunho.”

“I know you’re an adult,” he begins, voice muffled from his closed lips, but BoA cuts him off again.

“Then treat me like one!” She laughs, suddenly, and then removes both of her hands, bending forward to kiss him again. “Look at us, bickering like a married couple already. You see what I mean?”

Yunho smiles, taking a hold of her hand and twining their fingers together. He kisses her fingertips, feels her tremble in his arms, and when her free hand reaches down to her stomach Yunho thinks he knows.

“Maybe we could,” he starts, and BoA can’t stop looking at him. Her eyebrows raise, pushing him to continue. “Maybe… we could…”

The door opens, then, and they both turn on reaction to see a hand on the door knob, leading up to pale skin and small eyes and the end of it all.

“Jaejoong.”

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

“I’m not surprised to see you two together.” Jaejoong tells them, his teeth gleaming as the handsome smirk on his face turns into a sneer. He watches them through his narrowed eyes, leaning on his shoulder against the door frame. His gaze is deadly as it focuses on BoA’s fingers on Yunho’s shirt, frozen now in shock of the sudden turn of events. The expression on his face is hard and unreadable, dangerous even as he continues in a light but sardonic tone. The displeasure of his words dripping thick from his tongue: “After all both of you have been acting quite…  _different_  these past few weeks. Thought I must say I’m disappointed. I would have preferred to catch you both  _in flagrante_ instead of this—” He waved a disgusted hand between them, “— _nauseating_  display. That would have been much more exciting, don’t you think? Dramatic, even?”

Brushing an imaginary fluff off of his pressed suit jacket, Jaejoong’s smirk comes back on his face. He moves with catlike grace as he pushes away from the frame, his hands fitting into his pants’ pockets—the gun in his holster glinting menacingly into view. Yunho moves to stand erect, sliding BoA behind him before subtly moving forward into a protective stance. Jaejoong catches this immediately and laughs meanly.

“Jung Yunho—the  _fucking_  white knight. I really am not surprised.”

Jaejoong is standing straighter now to cast a long hard look between the two of them, mocking them with a dangerous toothy grin. At that moment BoA does not recognize the easy-going man she’d known in her early years, the smiling man she’d spent some time with when Yunho had been away on business.

The man who was chosen to be her fiancé has left, leaving a raging shell of a man in his wake. She shivers then when Jaejoong’s gaze turns away from Yunho and latches on to her and for a moment she feels an apology clutch at her throat at the sight she sees there.

 _He is hurt_ , BoA thinks in surprise.  _Jaejoong is… hurt._

But as quickly as the emotion appears in his eyes, it is replaced the very next second by a fierce gleam of rage. The suddenness of it all winds her very strength.

“I’ll give you both a heads’ start.” He says, looking back at Yunho. The rage is brimming now, coating the air heavy with tension.

“Jaejo—”

“Don’t,” He snaps at the both of them. Jaejoong turns and starts walking away, his voice echoing down the hall and striking fear into their hearts.

“Figure out what to do in the next fifteen minutes. I won’t regret what I’ll do when I catch you after then.”

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

Their eyes widen as they turn to each other in horror, panic running through their veins as they both struggled to gather their wits. _Shit,_  she thought. For a split second there, all she could hear is the sound of her heart thumping in her chest and this time it’s not due to the idyllic sweetness of fluttering butterflies in her stomach. Their eyes meet just as he heaves a gigantic breath out of his chest, running his fingers through his hair in frustration.

“What do we do?” she whispers, unsure.

He studies her for a moment before his lips settles on curling into a slight smirk. “Hey… wanna run away together?” And though his voice sounds playful, she can see the urgent look in his eyes. Now that they’ve been found out, it was only a matter of time before everything around them spun out of control. Neither of them wanted to be around for that. No matter how brave they were when they started this together.

The moment she feels his arms encircling around, keeping her tight in his strong embrace, she knows this is the only possible solution. His lips press into her hair and she inhales with him, closing her eyes as his strength seeped into her bones. “It’s you and me. We’ll make it out here, I promise,” he says, squeezing her hand and all she can do is nod and settle deeper into his chest.


	4. The Bloodbath

They make their escape down the fire escape of Yunho’s apartment building, slipping out of sight of the view of any familiar dark suits. True to his word, no one had come barging in with guns blazing after Jaejoong had left the apartment but neither Yunho nor BoA wanted to wait to truly find out. Instead they’d dressed quickly, grabbing only the most important things—Yunho’s gun and BoA’s overnight bag that she’d then since filled with stashed money Yunho had had lying secretly around the apartment—before turning towards their escape.

They hadn’t talked about where they would go, but in the heat of the moment, neither of them thought it mattered. “As long we’re together,” BoA had whispered in Yunho’s ear after dressing completely, kissing his cheek, “As long as we’re together, we’ll make it out of here.”

Yunho jumps down from the final flight of stairs, looking around quickly to assess their surroundings before turning back to the woman above and behind him. “Baby, come on,” he urges, holding up his arms at her, “I’ll catch you but be careful on that last step.”

“What are we going to do?” she asks just as she bounces off the edge rather than jump off it, safely enclosed into Yunho’s capable arms on her landing. She takes a moment to bury her face into the crook of his neck, breathing deeply as she feels her squeeze her gently in return. They are on the run now, there was no way to deny it. Whatever good opinion her father had of Yunho would be destroyed now that Jaejoong knew about them. There was no way to sugarcoat the danger their knowing could bring.

He released her after  the moment stretched too long, rubbing his hands over her arms briefly before planting a soft kiss on her forehead. “We’re going to have to find some place to crash for the night while I make arrangements. We can’t use any of our cards, or use our passports. Jaejoong would likely be watching those closely, but I think I can get us on a boat to China. They maybe we can move through there to…”

“Indonesia, maybe? At least for a while. I would want to go back to Europe but _Papa_ might look there first if Jaejoong decides to get him involved.”

They stared at each other grimly, knowing fully well Jaejoong would. Being an easy-going businessman was only one side of him but being the heir of to the Seoul underworld’s most feared gang was another side all together. It would be foolish to think Jaejoong would let them off easy. BoA had seen it in his eyes. He’d been hurt, _betrayed_.

And betrayal was the one thing she knew the Kwon underground family did not take lightly.

“We’ll worry about later. Right now we need to get some place safe.”

“Where can we go in this city? The family reaches every inch of this town!”

“Not necessarily,” someone says from the shadows, surprising the couple by its volume. Yunho had pulled out his gun quicker than BoA had ever seen anyone do and turned it towards the voice, all the while pushing BoA behind him to protect her, “Who’s there?!”

Changmin stepped out of the corner, somber; his hands up in a placating manner as he regarded them with a grim smirk. He had his gun out in one hand, the barrel pointing upwards—a sign which said that he was there in peace—and quips, “I’m not going to turn you lovebirds in. I’m here to help.”

The couple’s brows twisted together in unison, suspicious as Changmin took another step towards them. As friendly as they’ve been with the man, neither Yunho nor BoA wanted to risk putting their trust into someone who could potentially turn on them. And especially not one that was already a part of the very people they were trying to escape from.

But… Changmin’s eyes were earnest and that made all the difference. Yunho moves to lower his gun slightly though his eyes were still guarded as he regarded his friend. “What do you propose we do?”

With a smirk, he tosses a set of keys and a sealed envelope towards him. Changmin doesn’t step any closer as they tear into the packet, squinting in confusion at the address written on a sheet of paper inside of it. He explains before either Yunho or BoA can ask, talking quickly in a low tone. It wouldn’t be long till the others came looking for him and he didn’t want the couple to be around once they do. Helping them would be pointless then if they were caught. They’d die for sure. Yoona would never forgive him if that happens.

“That’s the address to my and Yoona’s apartment together. Neither of us has moved in officially yet but it’s there sitting. It’s in one of those new developments where the family hasn’t dipped into yet, owned by some relative of Siwon’s. The key to the apartment is inside a secret hatch in the mailbox.” The instructions are clear and simple, but the words weigh heavy between them. Changmin grimaces a little when he checks his watch, lifting his head to stare Yunho straight in the eyes as he speaks again, “Get in and plan your escape there. Jaejoong hasn’t told the Boss yet but he will find out about this soon enough. I’ll come when I can but I can’t promise it will be soon. Just get out of here. _Now._ ”

Whether it was because of gratitude or fear, BoA’s eyes began to fill. “Changmin—”

Changmin shoots her a look, silencing whatever it was she was about to say into a lump in her throat. “Don’t, BoA. Just go. I’ll hold them off as best I can. For now all you can do is take my car—it’s parked at the end of this street. I asked Sooyoung to drive it here when we were sent over.”

“Thank you.” BoA says anyway as Yunho nods and takes her hand, “Be careful.”

By then a hard mask had settled on Changmin’s face and as he pushes past them in a light jog, he turns only for a moment to mouth “Go!” before disappearing around the corner.

“Come on,” Yunho whispers, gripping the car keys and her hand tightly. “Let’s go.”

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

The apartment is sparse but livable with bare walls and dark, dark furniture. It’s a lot nicer than what either of them expects from the combined salaries of a thug and exotic dancer but they supposed there was more to both Changmin and Yoona that meets the eye. They had taken the roundabout way, weaving through streets and highways and back to make sure that they weren’t being followed just in case. Yunho thinks it isn’t so bad to take extra precaution and for once BoA doesn’t protest, sitting patiently in the passenger’s seat with her wide brim hat flopped low on her face.

They breathe easier once they arrive at the apartment building. They’d parked Changmin’s car a little ways away from the apartment building, grateful that it was nondescript to not catch anyone’s attention. If they had been left to their own devices they would have been caught for sure as both their cars were parked near the entrance of Yunho’s building. Whatever getaway they might have planned would have been shot to pieces; trapped in whatever it was Jaejoong would deem worthy as punishment. They go up and into the building immediately after parking, locating the mailbox and key the second they got through the entryway. The lock on the door clicks shut once they arrive at Apartment 351 and when they turn the curtains in to close off the fading sunlight from the outside, the feeling of relief and safety—however temporary it may be—fill them inside out.

The apartment was sparse but it was all they had that was safe at the moment. They couldn’t sit idly by for too long. Not now, not in this city.

“We have to act fast. We can’t stay here.” BoA whispers as she collapses on a chair, an arm placed tight across her stomach. Her words quivered even as she said them, “If my father even catches wind that Changmin or Sooyoung hel— _Oh God_ —”

“He won’t. At least, not too soon.” Yunho assures her, even though the statement sounded false even to his ears, “Changmin’s smart and he’s got Sooyoung informed too. Neither of them will rat us out.”

“Still!”

“We have to stay calm, sweetheart,” he tells her, taking her hands in his as he knelt down in front of her. He squeezes them gently, staring and willing her to take deep breaths. _In and out._ “It won’t do any of us—you or me or our baby—if you worry yourself to death. We’ll move quickly and plan it out. Once I find some way to get us out of the country without getting caught, we’ll leave. Nobody will even know we were here.”

“Except for Changmin.” BoA reminds him and Yunho winces. He nods anyway, a beat later, brushing a hair off her face.

“Yes. But like I said, he’s smart. He won’t get caught.”

“I hope so,” she sighs, leaning in to touch her forehead against his. Her hands moved up to cup her lover’s face, tracing his lips with feather light strokes before a breath escapes her and she connects their lips in a kiss.

Nothing is for certain, but at least BoA is certain of _this_.

“I love you, Yunho.”

Yunho sighs, their breaths mingling and says nothing.

 _That’s fine_ , BoA thinks with a smile that he returns against her lips. She knows already.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

Changmin calls through the apartment’s telephone an hour later, tone flat and low. “Someone will be by. Be ready.”

“Who?” Yunho asks and then can’t help but add, “Does the Je-Chul hyung know?”

His friend hesitates just for a moment but the notion is clear. “Sooyoung and I are still trying to come up with a plan. So if you have any suggestions, you better tell me now. If not, just be ready. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”

The line dies and the wait begins.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

When a knock sounds from the door at one in the morning, Yunho is instantly up, armed and alert. His feet are quiet as he creeps across the wall, ready for whoever it might be behind the wood. BoA hides inside one of the rooms, the one they’d chosen for it’s easy exit—close to the fire escape into the alley behind the building.

They’d agreed earlier that night that they’d split up if they were found, with BoA running away as far away as possible with everything they’d gathered in his bag. She hadn’t liked the idea of going separate ways but she couldn’t find it in herself to refuse when Yunho’s eyes stared down at hers with an unguarded, wild expression and said, “You have to live, sweetheart. If not for me, at least for our kid.”

“Open the damn door, Jung.” Yoona’s lilting voice permeated through the door, sounding exasperated as the couple heaves twin sighs of relief. Yunho tucked his gun into its’ holster before twisting the lock open, letting the tall, slim woman inside in a flurry of fluid movement and reeking of floral perfume and cigarette smoke.

“Changmin sent me a message,” was all she said as she practically tosses a big brown bag of groceries at him before turning almost immediately towards BoA to hand her another. The dancer regards her with a smile so sweet, it was almost unsettling as the hug she throws around BoA’s body.

“Those are clothes for you to wear,” Yoona tells her, pulling back just so to cup her cheeks, “I don’t reckon you’d want to run away in a pair of slinky heels and tight dress. Even ones as cute as those you’re wearing.”

BoA nods, feeling a surprise flood of affection wash over her, “Thank you, Yoona.”

Yoona only grins in response, stepping back to throw herself on the couch and kicking off her heels into a pile on the floor. Her skirt rode up indecently at the movement but she didn’t care for it as she looks at the couple, still staring in stunned silence at her presence.

She snaps her fingers at them, “Don’t just stand there. Get changed! And _you_ , make your girl a sandwich or something.”

They move after that—BoA towards the bathroom to change in a pair of dark drawstring pants and a white cotton blouse and Yunho towards the coffee table to pull out the groceries out of the bag. It took them several minutes later, once they were seated around the living room and were mid-bite into sandwiches Yunho had made, to find their actions ridiculous. Which Yunho points out in a grumble, making both BoA and Yoona laugh from her reclined seat on the couch.

“You’re such a stiff, Yunho. But I’m sure BoA likes that about you, huh?”

“Yoona!”

“What? I like a stiff cock as much as the next girl. And _especially_ if it’s Changmin’s. I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

BoA blushes even redder, swatting her with a pillow on the legs. “Still!”

“Honey, Jung’s already knocked you up.” Yoona says simply, crossing her ankles. The heels of her stiletto shoes looked even more threatening in the dim light. “I’m pretty sure that means you know how to handle his ‘gun’ more than any gal. Right, Yunho?”

It is Yunho’s turn to blush now and when he grunts in reply, the girls fall into another bout of squealing laughter.

He doesn’t like that fact that they are laughing at his expense, and especially not after the day he and BoA have had but he doesn’t say anything to stop them either. It isn’t in him to reprimand BoA for feeling carefree. She needs a reason to smile more than ever, now that they still couldn’t quite figure out what to do.

He’ll allow himself to be the butt of the joke for now.

Until a plan comes to surface, Yunho thinks he’ll gladly be the fool if it makes BoA smile.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

Yoona leaves for her own apartment three-fourths of an hour later, promising to be back in the morning with breakfast. She had clocked out early from the club to ‘sleep off the whiskey’, she explains with a conspiratorial arch in her brow, red lips widening into the exotic smile they’ve seen her gift her patrons. She tells them to feel at home for as long as they can but to make sure not to sully the sheets ( _“We got those from Changmin’s mother. I’m pretty sure she’s got that duvet cursed too. A baby-maker, I think she says it was. Not that you two need it, eh?”_ )—winking in that sly, provocative way that suggests a different meaning to the word ‘sully’ and makes them blush a deep, deep red. They sputter a protest which she laughs at, giving them both a loud kiss on the lips—dipping her tongue into their mouths for a split second—before bouncing out the door in her stiletto heels.

“Hell, so that’s what it means to be run over by _hurricane_ …” BoA comments, a little winded, still tickled pink in the cheeks and it is then that Yunho can’t help the snort of laughter to erupt from his throat. She joins him seconds later, falling back into the cushions and into his arms

“I think they’re going to last.” Yunho tells her, tucking her into his side, “Changmin and Yoona.”

She agrees, only slightly teasing, “A thug and a female escort? Yes, I reckon they will.”

They laugh together once more, gazes locking before trailing off into a silence no longer riddled with caution or fear. Their minds settle solely on the idea of their friends’ relationship—mismatched and troublesome for the most part but solid nonetheless and wonder that if _Changmin and Yoona can make it work_ , why can’t they?

Their arms tighten around each other simultaneously and it’s in the air they breathe together, settling into walls of their lungs and running through their veins. She reaches for his hand and places it on her tummy, holds it there and sighs as he presses a kiss on her forehead. They drift off into sleep, wrapped in each other and under the dim yellow glow of a lamp.

The light flickers, then stills with the night.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

They don’t notice Yoona returning in the morning, but they wake up to the whistling of the kettle on the stove and a plate of breads and cheeses on the living room table. The dancer’s presence is obvious by the scent of floral perfume in the air and by the loopy handwriting on a card next to the plate. The note is short but the relief it brings in reading it lifts their spirits to heights they’d never think it would reach:

**They found a way. Be ready, lovebirds. –Y**

BoA’s smile grows so wide it starts to hurt Yunho when he copies her. “We’ll be free soon, sweetheart.” He tells her, raining kisses all over her face. His mouth touching the downy softness of her cheeks, forehead, eyelids and pillowy lips in lingering affection.

“I love you,” he tells her, his voice strong and sure and the day is beautiful.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

“I’d like a girl. If you don’t mind.”

The words are spoken so softly against her skin, BoA almost doesn’t hear it. She half-turns to face him, pulling the sheet ( _duvet, baby-maker_ , Yoona’s voice rings in her head) up to her chest and regards him with a curious expression, “Hmm?”

“A girl. I want a baby girl.” He says simply, brushing the back of his hand against her cheek. Yunho’s eyes look so soft from where she’s lying on the bed and when his gaze dips to her chest, they darken considerably as he kisses the skin above her breasts.

They are in the middle of a waiting game for freedom but even though this is so, she can’t help but ask, “What would we name her?”

Yunho shrugs, resting his head under her chin. Their limbs entwined still, hearts waiting and patient.

“ _Soojung_.”

“Soojung?” BoA repeats and when he nods, she smiles and agrees. “That’s a pretty name.”

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

The next person who knocks on their door just as the day moves on to late afternoon is not who they expect.

Sooyoung bursts in without a word, tossing them both each a bag and papers of instruction and their new identification. She motions for BoA to sit down on a hardback chair, scissors in hand and doesn’t ask when she begins snipping at her long flowing locks.

Yunho begins as BoA begins to protest. “Soo—”

“Don’t!” Sooyoung tells, her tone tight and scolding. She levels them both with a teary-eyed glare, cutting larger sections as her next words spills from her lips, “Discretion is a wonderful thing, haven’t you heard? I’d known for awhile now but I had thought both of you would be smarter than to get caught but apparently not. If Changmin hadn’t been the one Jaejoong called—if he hadn’t thought to help or tell me—you are idiots, complete and utter imbeciles—didn’t even think of the consequences—Yoona almost got found out, she was followed and—”

The couple don’t dare to speak as Sooyoung’s speech halts, dissolving into heaving sobs with every snip of the blade on hair. BoA’s eyes fill as she watches her locks fill the floor, shivering a little when the air hits her nape. And Yunho stands still, fists clenching and unclenching and vying for control.

Yunho asks, “Yoona was followed? Did something—”

“The papers are drawn up, all you have to do is leave. We’ll hold the family off as long as we can.” Sooyoung cuts him off, calmer now though her jaw is set in a hard line that so unusual on her beautiful face. Her hand trembles just so as she pauses to caress BoA’s hair softly, affectionate. A touch from a friend so long known to both of them.

“It’s better if neither of you know anything more.”

The truth of her words hit deep, nipping their happy bubble in the bud just as it had formed in the early morning. They’d been so swept in the idea of freedom that they hadn’t stopped to think of what could happen after their escape. What would become of their friends, after all of their help and support—would there be some way for contact? What would become of Je-Chul, BoA’s father and Yunho’s paternal figure? Would he be furious? _Was he furious?_ What about Jaejoong? Will he kill them and their friends once he finds out? Was there any way of knowing the outcome of this escape? If they were successful? _But what if not?_

There is no way to know for sure and it is this that shakes them free from the illusion of easy.

“Forgive us, Sooyoung,” Yunho says finally, breaking the silence. Sooyoung sniffs, brushing the last of the cut hair off BoA’s shoulders and tossing the scissors back into her bag. She doesn’t look at them as she moves to leave, a death grip on the strap of her bag. BoA speaks, adding to Yunho’s statement before she’s able to open the door towards her exit,

“I’ll miss you, Sooyoung.”

Sooyoung turns back, shaking as she held her tears in and smiles a tremulous smile. “I bet Changmin it’d be boy. Prove him wrong for me?”

The couple laughs in strange mixture of sorrow and surprise, holding on to each other as a piece of their lives leaves.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

"I'm scared," she admits, clutching his arm.

He gives her a reassuring smile, but even he knows that _this is it_ \- this is the last fight, the last ditch effort for freedom - that whatever happens next is out of their hands. It is dangerous, _do or die_ and while fear courses fierce into their veins, there is no choice. He wants to do it. He will do it. Because he wants this - wants her. He _needs_ her.

She returns the smile with one of her own, pink and bittersweet. There's that familiar fluttering in her stomach again, and her heart clenches. "I just - I just want -"

"Hmm?" he turns to her, noticing the way she tucks a stray hair behind her ear.

It's odd, how she suddenly has the urge to do this at such a time, but she loves him - so, so much, and she doesn't know how long they can last. "I want...to kiss you," she whispers, leaning in, chastely fitting her lips over his. His arms snake around her waist and she breathes him in, whispering his name against his skin. It feels so right, and she wishes that it could've been them all along. That what was about to unfold didn't have to be the way their destiny has to go. She closes her eyes, wanting the moment to last forever, but they both know that it's now or never.

When they pull away, he's gazing at her so intensely that it sends shivers down her spine. "Let's do this," he says softly, taking her hand in his.

She nods. It's time.

With the key in the ignition and BoA’s hand clutching his arm, Yunho starts the car and weaves his way quietly down the road. His gun is loaded and ready, steady in his holster as he maneuvers the vehicle towards the highway.

 _This won’t end well._ He knows it won’t, but he isn’t going to back down. They will escape. Their child will grow happy. He will love BoA forever.

Yunho steps on the accelerator, knuckles tight and white on the wheel.

_Come hell or high water._


	5. The End

**My love,**

**I saw a bird today that reminded me of you. It followed me around all day, trying to be sly even though I kept seeing it around my peripheral vision.**

**You might hate it to know that a scruffy pigeon makes me think of you but I don’t really care if you don’t like it.**

**I spent most of my life trying to please other people and we decided I wouldn’t do that anymore.**

**I’d like to keep that pigeon as a pet though. That is if I could catch it, but I know I won’t. It deserves to be free, to live…**

**Like us.**

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

BoA takes to writing letters three weeks after successfully moving to a little ding of an apartment in Chinatown, Manhattan, NY. It’s small and reeks of dirt and heavy floral scents because of the flower shop downstairs but it is _theirs_ , and after over half a year in America, she is ready to live on her own two feet.

Sooyoung’s contact and a friend of Siwon’s going by the name of HanGeng meets her by the docks once her ship arrives, smuggling them out of the vessel with little to no trouble with the Immigration system. No one in Little Fuzhou questions the appearance of a Korean face in the midst of a Chinese-American population. They are nobody here, a ghost, and BoA thinks this is exactly where she wants to be in life.

“I’ll move you elsewhere once I get you new papers drawn up,” HanGeng tells her, smiling warmly as he fluffs a pillow. She sees the specks of dust floating around the yellow light, dancing to some silent tune she wasn’t privy to but seems to know by heart _. Dum-da-dum, da-dum._ The song goes, playing in her head and she smiles despite the exhaustion in her limbs, only half-listening when her caretaker continues speaking, “Would you like to change anything? For the new papers, I mean.”

BoA nods, lips still upturned into a tiny soft smile. “Yes. I’d like to be known as Jung BoA. If you don’t mind.”

HanGeng understands (of course he does) and bows his head in reply, “Not at all.” He leaves her alone to her thoughts after a while, handing off a blanket into her hands as though it were a child. He knows as well as she that she’ll need the practice.

After all, she’ll be a mother soon.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**My love,**

**You have to stop following me.**

**(And yes, I mean get off that windowsill and _fly_.)**

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**((** _They make it as far as the exit to the freeway when Yunho recognizes the sleekly colored cars following them immediately from a mile off and turns early into another exit miles off where they should be going. He knows it’s risky to veer off course but he had expected them to catch wind and follow. The family has never given up when they should—and it is unlikely they would start now when the daughter of the kingpin is at stake._

_“Yunho—” BoA stutters, eyes wide as she looks back and sees the cars coming in closer and closer, “They’re gaining on us.”_

_His foot presses down on the acceleration, dodging the few cars slowing them down and overtaking them in a blur of dust. BoA holds on for her life, one hand clutched on the armrest while the other grips his forearm—trembling as the engine rumbles and shakes louder beneath her feet. Yunho shakes her hold off of him for only a second, grabbing onto in on the next as he steers past another car—a white truck this time, carrying cages of chicken in the back—and speeds further and further away._

_“We’ll lose them.” He tries to assure her, his tone flat and unconvincing. It doesn’t help but it makes her smile, and the fact that it does makes it so much easier for her to believe it to be true. She squeezes his fingers and nods, looking out resolutely at the open road._

_“We’ll lose them,” she echoes, grasping his hand on the steering wheel. They’re awful liars and it isn’t enough but it has to be. “We will.”_

_Yunho drives on, glancing behind and winces as the cars they’d hoped to dodge stick with them still. He moves the hand she’s holding into the gear shift, and pulls down so fast their heads spin as Yunho makes a U-Turn and speeds past their tails, leaving them blubbering in the dust. It gives them just enough time to be on their way to the right exit. To the docks where the ship Sooyoung told them to be in will be. To freedom._

_Yunho laughs as BoA does, throwing her hair back._ Freedom is close, _they think. **It is.** They can taste it._

_He brings her knuckles to his lips and kisses them, feather light and brimming with all the love in his heart. His eyes twinkling as he mutters against her skin, “Hold on tight, baby.”_

_And she does. Tight and sure._ **))**

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**My love,**

**The sweet old man downstairs gave me a bouquet of the most beautiful peonies today.**

**They smelled as sweet as his disposition so I had to give him a little kiss.**

**You don’t mind, right?**

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

She fills an old shoebox with her letters and keeps it under her bed.

Sometimes they are long and winding, ranging from five to ten pages depending on her mood. Other times they are only a few sentences long, a random thought or quote written in longhand and in the darkest ink. The words smudge sometimes when she finishes and arranges them behind one another, leafing through the cards and envelopes in the box before shutting it and lying on her side. The shades are drawn by then and only the very faint light from the street corners can get through the room.

Her hand skims from her sternum down to below her belly button and sighs.

She’ll write again tomorrow. That as much is certain.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**My love,**

**You are late.**

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

HanGeng visits sometimes, making his famous fried rice on nights when it is too warm to cook anything else. He’s often carrying a message, little tidbits of information that makes her stomach turn—

“ _My friend is foolish for letting her slip away. I know she would have said ‘Yes’ to his proposal. Don’t you think so? …I suppose nothing ever does last._ ”

 _—_ and flutter into flight.

_“But the thug did finally wear down the dancer. They are marrying in the fall on the roof of her nightclub. Isn’t that just ironic?”_

BoA craves this little visits, these little flashes to a life she could have lived in another world (another time), more than she likes to admit.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**My love,**

**Don’t you think YoungMin is a strong name?**

**I thought it would be clever to pay tribute to our past life.**

**_Jung YoungMin._ **

**Sometimes I wonder how it would be if we’d stayed.**

**But then I remember that I never wanted that, so I don’t.**

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

(Nobody knows her in Little Fuzhou but they come when her water breaks.)

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**My love,**

**The pigeon and I came home to find you asleep, flat on your back and dreaming.**

**Your breath is warm and it calms us both.**

**We love you.**

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**((** _The celebration dies the second they arrive at the docks._

_Jaejoong is already there, dressed impeccably. His eyes are gleaming and he is alone._

_“Shit, shit, shit!”_

_Yunho curses as he swerves the car, pulling BoA’s head down just as a bullet pierces the windshield and he drives off the pier. Flecks of red spraying her cheek and then darkness._

_Down, down, down they go—_ **))**

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

Her son is seven when he sprains his arm trying to reach the shoebox on top of the closet where she keeps it next.

The letters litter the ground when she finally comes up into the room, too panicked by the wailing of her son to care about the mess he’d made. He is given a splint and stitched up by the local Chinese medicine man across the street two hours later, when she asks why he’d gone into her room.

“I want to read the letters, Mama.” He says in an English-accented Korean, eyes wide and so _so_ clear. He doesn’t speak Korean or Chinese all that well but he tries and she loves him so much more for it. “You always write at night and then put them in that box. You never send them. Are they for Papa?”

“Ah, so Little YoungMin became too curious for your own good?”

“I’m not little!” He huffs, running away and wiping at his cheek where her kiss connected on his skin. Her heart warms at the sight of him, arms crossed awkwardly because of the sprain and pouting, looking so much like…

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**My love, I—**

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

A letter visits her a month after YoungMin is born instead of HanGeng.

It is addressed to him ( _Mr. YoungMin Jung, 1282 Little Fuzhou, Chinatown, Manhattan, NY_ ), dated a few months before in familiar handwriting. She rips it open without a second thought and reads, hand on her heart.

“ _BoA,_

_Jaejoong is dead. He put a gun to his head after grieving your and Yunho’s death. It must be out of guilt. After all it was his gun that… anyway, we wouldn’t have known he’d do this if he hadn’t told Changmin not to pick him up after dropping him off at Yunho’s old apartment._

_Needless to say the family is in shambles now. No one seems to want to head it after everything._

_Your father retired after Jaejoong’s funeral and moved to Europe. He is still hoping to find you there but of course he won’t._

_That’s all. I thought you should know the most important of things. Everyone else is alright. Changmin and Yoona are shockingly happily married and I am seeing someone new._

_I’m not sure when you will get this but I trust that Siwon will come through for me still._

_I miss you, my sister._

_Good bye._

_\--Sooyoung_ ”

A minute later she drops the letter in the fire and watches it burn into ash.

Then she repeats the words, her spirit lifting into the void—the silence. A tribute somewhat as her babe begins to cry.

“Good bye.”

BoA waits just once more before moving on.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**My love, my Yunho, _I love you._**

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**((** _The water is almost too much as she fights her way against it, pushing and kicking her way to the surface. She struggles underwater, reaching for the light overhead when she is pulled aside and up—ready to sputter obscenities when a hand is clamped over her mouth._

_“Shh.” It is Changmin holding her aloft, keeping her hidden as he paddles his way as quietly as he can to a dingy boat a few yards away. She blinks, too stunned to speak, and lets him lead her far, far away from where the crash occurred, her mind spinning with questions and—_

_“Yunho! Where is he?! Where is—”_

_“I said be quiet!” Changmin scolds her, clamping her mouth shut again and swimming behind the boat. From yards away she can hear people cursing and yelling, water splashing to and fro as her father’s dives trying to find her. Them._ Yunho.

_“Changmi—”_

_Changmin’s words come out muffled, filled with despair, “You have to leave. I’m supposed to be looking for you with the others._ ” _He lifts her up and to the arms of—she blinks again, shuttered and recognizes a sorrowful Siwon—and kicks back and away from the boat. “Siwon will take you to another ship to America. He’ll explain the plan to you on the way.”_

_He stops for a moment, eyes wetter with something besides the sea water and chokes on the final words she’ll ever hear him say._

_” I just—BoA, I swear,_ I tried _. I couldn’t—_ He **made** me promise.”

_It clicks._

Flecks of red spraying her cheek.

_And she shatters._ **))**

 

**~*~*~*~**

**My love,**

**Wait for me. I’m almost there.**

**~*~*~*~**

“Your father wanted a little girl, you know.” She wheezes, smiling wide despite the grey-ashened appearance of her face, “He wanted a little girl named Soojung.”

“Shh, Mama, I know, you told me a thousand times before.” YoungMin grins in response, wiping at his eyes as his wife looks on from behind him. She is clutching a little girl in her arms, crushing her into her chest despite the tell-tale bump hindering the embrace. “We already told you we’d name our second daughter Soojung, remember?”

BoA nods, patting his hand. It was a caress more than a reprimand, her touch leaving too little of the warmth he was accustomed to while growing up.

“I thought Little YoungMin needed a reminder.”

YoungMin lets out a sob instead of a huff this time, kissing his mother’s hand.

“I’m not little, Mama.”

She smiles, agreeing. “Will you do one last thing for Mama?”

“Yes, anything.”

BoA breathes in, one last, and then lets it leave her as she closes her eyes to the light that comes all too close.

“Burn my letters.”

 

**~*~*~*~**

**_My love,_ **

****

**_I’ll see you._ **

**~*~*~*~**

 

YoungMin burns all but one letter and leaves that on her grave.

 

**~*~*~*~**

 

**My daughter Soojung was born today and she is beautiful. I wish you could have met her.**

**But it’s alright. Finally, you are both where you are supposed to be.**

**Your son, YoungMin.**

 

 

 

F I N I S

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you'd guys would like the 2014 version of this fic posted up too.


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